The new EU copyright law closes the book on free speech online. That’s a feature, not a bug.
By Helen Buyniski | RT | March 26, 2019
The controversial copyright law facing a final vote in the EU parliament is less about copyright than it is about hammering a final nail in the coffin of the freedoms the internet once promised. Yes, Article 13 is that bad.
Most laws address themselves toward tangible, human-sized problems. Article 13, the sweeping European copyright legislation that proposes to filter all content on its way to the web to ensure no rights are being violated, isn’t interested in such prosaic stuff. It seeks to defy the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Physics? In my internet? The web operates according to the laws of entropy. It trends toward decentralization – of ideas, of social groups, but most importantly of power. Authority looks at this delightful disorder and sees only malevolent chaos that needs to be reined in. Legislators and the corporations that run their countries have spent a lot of time brainstorming on how to put the cat back in the bag, and Article 13 is the result.
This is not just a European problem. Like a catastrophic nuclear meltdown, there is no containing the fallout from this kind of measure, designed to effectively destroy the internet as we know it. Companies and platforms may start by leaving Europe, or refusing to serve European customers, but the internet has no borders, and the big platforms will embrace whatever filters are required to maintain their hold on their users – no matter what country they inhabit. One need only witness the absurdity when Canadian, American and Australian Twitter users are sanctioned for violating Pakistani blasphemy laws to understand the willingness of these platforms to cater to the most oppressive common denominator.
It’s almost surprising that the EU isn’t trying to sell this law as the killer weapon in the ongoing War on Fake News, given its member countries’ use of that trendy adversary to justify increasingly draconian speech restrictions – from the proposed end of anonymity in France to criminal charges for platforms that don’t take down “problematic” speech quickly enough in the UK. But then, EU leaders aren’t actually elected, so they don’t have to sell the people anything. Like the monopolies Article 13 enables, the EU gives its users no choice – accept this degraded, deliberately-hobbled, entropically-eviscerated parody of the internet, or stay offline (by the time they’re done with it, you’ll hardly be able to tell the difference, anyway).
Google spent $100 million to develop a filter capable of screening uploaded content in real time in order to prevent wrong-think from seeping into YouTube livestreams. There are few feelings as unsettling as livestreaming to an audience only to find one’s mic cut after broaching a topic that has been declared off-limits. For now, those who would resist the jackbooted march of “progress” can join another platform, but under Article 13’s restrictions, will that other platform be able to afford a $100 million content filter of its own?
Algorithms are dumb – dumber than even the most clueless human forum moderator – and automated filters cannot tell the difference between fair use, parody, and straight-up rip-offs any more than they can tell the difference between real and fake news. Collateral censorship will tear a hole in casual communication – forget memes and similar forms of humor. AI doesn’t laugh.
To their credit, many of the early architects of the internet see this legislation for the threat that it is and have spoken passionately against it. They understand the threat posed to innovation and the free exchange of ideas, but they naively believe those who wrote the legislation do not. “Indeed, if Article 13 had been in place when the Internet’s core protocols and applications were developed, it is unlikely that it would exist today as we know it,” warned a letter signed by 70 web pioneers in opposition to the law.
The way the web developed the first time was not ideal for centralized power structures. Only a nuclear option like Article 13 could ever hope to rein in the human potential unleashed by the web and give them a second chance to get it right.
Article 13, the internet’s founding fathers warn, means the “transformation of the Internet from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users.” That’s a feature, not a bug. Keeping out small platforms that could challenge the monopolies that have shown they’re willing to work with governments certainly makes life easier for those governments. The internet once held the promise to liberate humanity. The European Parliament believes that’s too big a risk to take.
Alan “Israel Did 9/11” Sabrosky: Most Censored Man in America
By Kevin Barrett • Unz Review • March 24, 2019
Who’s afraid of Alan Sabrosky? Whoever they are, they have the ability to monitor and censor YouTube live-streams in real time. And they apparently don’t want you to know what Sabrosky thinks about the Holocaust.
That’s the obvious takeaway from the highly unusual example of YouTube censorship that disrupted the March 22 live broadcast of False Flag Weekly News. The broadcast, which live-streamed from Vimeo to three different YouTube channels, transpired normally up to the 59:31 mark, when Sabrosky stated that the Holocaust was “a technological and logistical impossibility—“ and suddenly his mike was cut… but only on the YouTube stream, archived here:
If you want to hear the rest of Dr. Sabrosky’s Holocaust statement (instead of long stretches of dead air) you’ll have to watch the Vimeo version, which was not censored:
False Flag Weekly News 03/22/2019–New Zealand False Flag? from No Lies Radio on Vimeo.
Whoever did this must have been monitoring the broadcast in real time. It must have been a human, not an AI algorithm. The censor must have had his or her finger hovering over the “cut his mike” button throughout the show. And that censor must have been trained and given the power to cut Sabrosky’s mike within a couple of seconds of Sabrosky starting to “deny the Holocaust.” Altogether quite an amazing feat of censorship!
But however logistically and technologically impressive this bizarre crime against free speech may have been, it seems even more impressively stupid and self-defeating. Can they really believe that actions like this are going to stop people from asking questions about the Holocaust? Haven’t they heard of the Streisand Effect? Isn’t everyone who hears about this going to say, “gee, if they have to take such extreme measures to silence this guy, maybe he’s onto something?”
It is really quite a tribute to Dr. Sabrosky and False Flag Weekly News that someone went to so much trouble. They must be spending far more money to monitor and censor us than we are spending doing the show in the first place. Talk about asymmetrical information warfare!
But I don’t believe the people behind this are as stupid as they seem. Such apparently counterproductive acts sometimes do serve strategic purposes. In this case, I assume the censors were beta-testing protocols for censoring live-streams in real time. It is no coincidence that this attack on Alan Sabrosky’s First Amendment rights came exactly one week after the allegedly live-streamed Christchurch shooting. Since the Christchurch terror event, Facebook and YouTube representatives have been all over the MSM announcing that they have to fix their systems to prevent “the live-streaming of hate.”
If I were a paranoid conspiracy theorist I would wonder whether the Christchurch attack was a set-up to roll out the beta testing of precisely this sort of censorship. I would note the incongruity of the fact that the people pushing for internet censorship are almost all Zionist Jews, not Muslims—yet the censorship is being rolled out on the pretext that it is supposed to protect Muslims and “honor the sacred Christchurch victims.” Since when did Zionists care about Muslim lives? They proudly slaughter a Christchurch worth of Palestinian Muslims every month or two. And they have murdered 32 million Muslims, and created tens of millions of refugees, in the 9/11 wars for Israel.
It’s as if the people behind the Christchurch push-for-censorship PR op, and the subsequent deployment of new censorship systems like the one just beta-tested against FFWN, are trying to conceal their true identities. Perhaps that is why they made sure that the word “Jew” was almost entirely absent from the Tarrant manifesto. As Daniel Haqiqatjou notes:
The 73-page document reads like it was written by someone who is trying very hard to pretend to be a White Nationalist… But there is one glaring inconsistency. If you ever visit places on the internet frequented and owned by White Nationalists, such as 4chan, 8chan, Daily Stormer, or Gab, one immediate, indubitable fact hits you in the face: These people hate Jews. More than anyone else, White Nationalists hate Jews and are not afraid of expressing it with thousands of different memes…. What is bizarre about Tarrant’s alleged manifesto is that he says a great deal about this (Jewish) plot. He rails against immigration, fertility rates, and “White genocide.” But he doesn’t mention who the supposed plotters are. Why? Why is Tarrant following the White Nationalist script to the letter but doesn’t mention Jews once in the entire 73 pages?
(Except one passing mention that they’re fine when they’re Israeli!)
If the perps were hiding their identities while orchestrating Christchurch and the internet censorship campaign it launched, they dropped the mask when they silenced Alan Sabrosky. We all know who reacts reflexively against “Holocaust denial.” And we all know who hates Alan Sabrosky, the former US Army War College Head of Strategic Studies who came out as a 9/11 truther on my radio show in March, 2010—and announced that Israel did it.
The Zionist fear and loathing of Sabrosky is so off-the-charts that the mere mention of his name can get you arrested. That’s what happened to Jeremy Rothe-Kushel in May 2016 when he tried to ask Dennis Ross a question during the Q&A after Ross’s talk at the Kansas City Public Library.
Tellingly, the Times of Israel report on Rothe-Kushel’s free speech lawsuit tiptoes around Sabrosky’s unspeakable name.
Alan Sabrosky, “he who must not be named,” is also “he who must not be broadcast.” Bonnie Faulkner’s Guns and Butter radio show, one of the most popular and respected Pacifica staples, was abruptly terminated by KPFA management last August due to Sabrosky’s appearance there.
“Somebody” apparently doesn’t want Sabrosky on False Flag Weekly News, either. Last January 4th Alan Sabrosky made his debut appearance as a regular FFWN co-host. The audience gave him a huge thumbs-up. But when he tried to return on a regular basis, his computer suddenly started coming down with bizarre ailments. It always seemed to happen right before the show. His computer would be working fine, and then suddenly WHAM—it would melt down right before broadcast time and we’d scramble to find a replacement. This has happened so many times in the past three months that I have lost count. Tech experts who have tried to solve the problem say Sabrosky is the victim of a highly sophisticated cyber-attack. It was only this past Friday, March 22, that after elaborate precautions we were finally able to get Alan broadcasting again on FFWN. And miraculously enough, he somehow got through 58 minutes of live-streaming before they cut his mike.
Why is Dr. Alan Sabrosky the most censored man in America? Those seeking to silence him don’t want you to know what he thinks about two issues: 9/11 and the Holocaust. Specifically, they don’t want you to know that he thinks 9/11 was “a Mossad operation, period.” And they don’t want you to know that he thinks the official Holocaust narrative of six million Jews killed mostly in gas chambers is “a technological and logistical impossibility.”
Why are these two issues so sensitive? The Holocaust, whatever it was, happened 75 years ago. And 9/11 happened more than 17 years ago. Isn’t all that stuff ancient history?
The answer, I believe, is that both Official Conspiracy Theories (OCTs) are foundational myths of Zionism. The myth (sacred narrative) of the Holocaust is Israel’s primary basis of legitimacy in global public opinion and especially Jewish opinion. The Platonic guardians of Zionism need the Holocaust horror story to bludgeon world Jewry into accepting the necessity of establishing and maintaining a “Jewish state.”
Likewise the sacred official myth of 9/11 is the lynchpin of the “clash of civilizations,” which in essence is a long-term Western war against Israel’s enemies. Were it widely known that Israel itself orchestrated 9/11 and the ensuing crusade, Israel’s already-dubious future wouldn’t just be dubious—it would be nonexistent.
Alan Sabrosky happens to be one of the world’s best-credentialed and most-eloquent voices debunking the two foundational myths of Zionism. The fact that he hails from a Jewish background makes him that much more annoying—and that much more credible. Dr. Sabrosky is extremely well-informed, and he expresses himself in an engagingly straight-shooting manner. An ex-Marine as well as Strategic Studies professor, Alan Sabrosky has a full clip of info-ammo and unloads it with uncanny accuracy and alacrity. In many respects he is the Zionists’ worst nightmare.
No wonder “Doc Sabrosky” is the most-censored man in America.
Suppressing Discussion Doesn’t Solve the Problem. It is the Problem.
By Thomas L. Knapp | The Garrison Center | March 22, 2019
Everywhere one looks these days, the world seems to be moving away from debate on contentious subjects and toward demands that those who have unpopular opinions — or even just ask impertinent questions — be forcibly silenced.
“You will never hear me mention his name,” prime minister Jacinda Ardern said of Brenton Tarrant, the sole suspect in two deadly attacks on mosques in Christchurch. “He may have sought notoriety but here in New Zealand we will give him nothing — not even his name.”
That’s fine as a personal decision, I guess, but not as a top-down decision for her fellow New Zealanders. Even as Ardern spoke, police working for her government were arresting at least two people for sharing the shooter’s live-streamed video of the attacks on social media.
Across the Tasman Sea, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison is calling on the governments of G20 countries to implement measures “including appropriate filtering, detecting and removing of content by actors who encourage, normalise, recruit, facilitate or commit terrorist and violent atrocities.”
Let’s be clear about what Morrison, other “world leaders,” and significant segments of activist communities and even the general public, are demanding (and to a frightful degree already implementing): Internet censorship.
This isn’t really a new development. The mosque attacks are merely the latest incident weaponized by politicians and activists in service to a long-running campaign against public discussion and debate that requires them to make arguments and persuade instead of just bark orders and compel.
The fictional “memory hole” of the IngSoc regime in George Orwell’s 1984 stood for more than half a century as an oft-cited and wisely acknowledged warning. Now that hole is opening up beneath us for real and threatening to suck us down into a new Dark Age of “thoughtcrime” and “unpersons.”
The threat is content-independent. Renaming climate change skeptics “deniers” and demanding “investigations” of them, or pressuring media to ban discussions of policy on vaccines, is just as evil as suing Alex Jones for promulgating bizarre theories about the Sandy Hook massacre.
The only appropriate response to “bad” speech — that is, speech one disagrees with — is “better” speech.
Attempting to shut down your opponents’ ability to participate in an argument isn’t itself a winning argument. Forbidding your opponents to speak to a problem doesn’t solve that problem.
In fact, those tactics are tantamount to admitting that your arguments are less persuasive and that your solutions can’t withstand scrutiny.
Freedom of thought and expression are primary, foundational rights. They make it possible for us to hash out issues and solve problems peaceably instead of by force. Any attempt to suppress them is itself a call for totalitarianism and the alternative to those liberties is social and political death.
Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org).
France shuts down ‘anti-Semitic’ groups after pledge to fight worst surge ‘since World War II’
RT | March 21, 2019
Emmanuel Macron has ordered the closure of four organizations accused by officials of promoting jihad and anti-Semitism. Earlier, the French president pledged to fight an unprecedented surge of anti-Semitism in the country.
The move comes at the request of Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, who said the groups “foment hatred, call for discrimination and justify violence,” and must be closed.
The ministry separately said the groups advocated armed jihad and indoctrinating young people. They also promoted organizations like Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah – all listed as terrorist organizations by the EU, the ministry stressed.
French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux labeled the groups as “openly anti-Semitic and dangerous associations” during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The development comes a month after Macron pledged to the Jewish community to fight against what he called a “resurgence of anti-Semitism unseen since World War II.” He said France will redefine anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism in line with the preferences of pro-Israel groups. The decision was welcomed by the government of Israel.
The French government reported a 74-percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents in 2018 in the country compared to previous year. The pledge from Macron came after thousands of people, including two former French presidents, rallied across the country to condemn anti-Semitism in response to the desecration of a Jewish cemetery in the Strasbourg area.
The banned organizations are the Zahra Center France, the Shia Federation of France, the Anti-Zionist Party and France Marianne TV. Center Zahra France was targeted by an anti-terrorist raid in October, and was followed by the seizure of assets for six months. The French authorities accused the group, which is based in northern France, of being a vehicle for propagating radical Shiite Islam. The three others organizations are reportedly working under the center’s umbrella.
The man behind the Zahra Center and Anti-Zionist Party is Yahia Gouasmi. He is a Lebanese-born Shia Muslim, who has been living in France since the 1960s. An avowed critic of Zionism and Israel, his stated goal is to oppose the Israeli lobby in France and hold the Jewish state accountable for crimes against Palestinians and other nations. He launched the party in 2009 after the Israeli bombings of the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead.
Goodbye to the Internet: Interference by Governments Is Already Here
By Philip M. GIRALDI | Strategic Culture Foundation | 21.03.2019
There is a saying attributed to the French banker Nathan Rothschild that “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws.” Conservative opinion in the United States has long suspected that Rothschild was right and there have been frequent calls to audit the Federal Reserve Bank based on the presumption that it has not always acted in support of the actual interests of the American people. That such an assessment is almost certainly correct might be presumed based on the 2008 economic crash in which the government bailed out the banks, which had through their malfeasance caused the disaster, and left individual Americans who had lost everything to face the consequences.
Be that as it may, if there were a modern version of the Rothschild comment it might go something like this: “Give me control of the internet and no one will ever more know what is true.” The internet, which was originally conceived of as a platform for the free interchange of information and opinions, is instead inexorably becoming a managed medium that is increasingly controlled by corporate and government interests. Those interests are in no way answerable to the vast majority of the consumers who actually use the sites in a reasonable and non-threatening fashion to communicate and share different points of view.
The United States Congress started the regulation ball rolling when it summoned the chief executives of the leading social media sites in the wake of the 2016 election. It sought explanations regarding why and how the Russians had allegedly been able to interfere in the election through the use of fraudulent accounts to spread information that might have influenced some voters. In spite of the sound and fury, however, all Congress succeeded in doing was demonstrating that the case against Moscow was flimsy at best while at the same time creating a rationale for an increased role in censoring the internet backed by the threat of government regulation.
Given that background, the recent shootings at a synagogue in Pittsburgh and at mosques in Christchurch New Zealand have inevitably produced strident demands that something must be done about the internet, with the presumption that the media both encouraged and enabled the attacks by the gunmen, demented individuals who were immediately labeled as “white supremacists.” One critic puts it this way, “Let’s be clear, social media is the lifeblood of the far-right. The fact that a terror attack was livestreamed should tell us that this is a unique form for violence made for the digital era. The infrastructure of social media giants is not merely ancillary to the operations of terrorists — it is central to it [and] social media giants assume a huge responsibility to prevent and stop hate speech proliferating on the internet. It’s clear the internet giants cannot manage this alone; we urgently need a renewed conversation on internet regulation… It is time for counter-terrorism specialists to move into the offices of social media giants.”
It’s the wrong thing to do, in part because intelligence and police services already spend a great deal of time monitoring chat on the internet. And the premise that most terrorists who use the social media can be characterized as the enemy du jour “white supremacists” is also patently untrue. Using the national security argument to place knuckle dragging “counter-terrorism specialists” in private sector offices would be the last thing that anyone would reasonably want to do. If one were to turn the internet into a government regulated service it would mean that what comes out at the other end would be something like propaganda intended to make the public think in ways that do not challenge the authority of the bureaucrats and politicians. In the US, it might amount to nothing less than exposure to commentary approved by Mike Pompeo and John Bolton if one wished to learn what is going on in the world.
Currently I and many other internet users appreciate and rely on the alternative media to provide viewpoints that are either suppressed by government or corporate interests or even contrary to prevailing fraudulent news accounts. And the fact is that the internet is already subject to heavy handed censorship by the service providers, which one friend has described as “Soviet era” in its intensity, who are themselves implementing their increasingly disruptive actions to find false personas and to ban as “hate speech” anything that is objected to by influential constituencies.
Blocking information is also already implemented by various countries through a cooperative arrangement whereby governments can ask search engines to remove material. Google actually documents the practice in an annual Transparency Report which reveals that government requests to remove information have increased from less than 1,000 per year in 2010 to nearly 30,000 per year currently. Not surprisingly, Israel and the United States lead the pack when it comes to requests for deletions. Since 2009 the US has asked for 7,964 deletions totaling 109,936 items while Israel has sought 1,436 deletions totally 10,648 items. Roughly two thirds of Israeli and US requests were granted.
And there is more happening behind the scenes. Since 2016, Facebook representatives have also been regularly meeting with the Israeli government to delete Facebook accounts of Palestinians that the Israelis claim constitute “incitement.” Israel had threatened Facebook that non-compliance with Israeli deletion orders would “result in the enactment of laws requiring Facebook to do so, upon pain of being severely fined or even blocked in the country.” Facebook chose compliance and, since that time, Israeli officials have been “publicly boasting about how obedient Facebook is when it comes to Israeli censorship orders.” It should be noted that Facebook postings calling for the murder of Palestinians have not been censored.
And censorship also operates as well at other levels unseen, to include deletion of millions of old postings and videos to change the historical record and rewrite the past. To alter the current narrative, Microsoft, Google, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook all have been pressured to cooperate with pro-Israel private groups in the United States, to include the powerful Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The ADL is working with social media “to engineer new solutions to stop cyberhate” by blocking “hate language,” which includes any criticism of Israel that might be construed as anti-Semitism by the new expanded definition that is being widely promoted by the US Congress and the Trump Administration.
Censorship of information also increasingly operates in the publishing world. With the demise of actual bookstores, most readers buy their books from media online giant Amazon, which had a policy of offering every book in print. On February 19, 2019, it was revealed that Amazon would no longer sell books that it considered too controversial.
Government regulation combined with corporate social media self-censorship means that the user of the service will not know what he or she is missing because it will not be there. And once the freedom to share information without restraint is gone it will never return. On balance, free speech is intrinsically far more important than any satisfaction that might come from government intrusion to make the internet less an enabler of violence. If history teaches us anything, it is that the diminishment of one basic right will rapidly lead to the loss of others and there is no freedom more fundamental than the ability to say or write whatever one chooses, wherever and whenever one seeks to do so.
Countdown to “Full Spectrum Dominance”
By T.J. Coles | CounterPunch | March 20, 2019
The US is formally committed to dominating the world by the year 2020. With President Trump’s new Space Directive-4, the production of laser-armed fighter jets as possible precursors to space weapons, and the possibility of nuclear warheads being put into orbit, the clock is ticking…
Back in 1997, the now-re-established US Space Command announced its commitment to “full spectrum dominance.” The Vision for 2020 explains that “full spectrum dominance” means military control over land, sea, air, and space (the so-called fourth dimension of warfare) “to protect US interests and investment.” “Protect” means guarantee operational freedom. “US interest and investment” means corporate profits.
The glossy brochure explains that, in the past, the Army evolved to protect US settlers who stole land from Native Americans in the genocidal birth of the nation. Like the Vision for 2020, a report by the National Defense University acknowledges that by the 19th century, the Navy had evolved to protect the US’s newly-formulated “grand strategy.” In addition to supposedly protecting citizens and the constitution, “The overriding principle was, and remains, the protection of American territory … and our economic well-being.” By the 20th century, the Air Force had been established, in the words of the Air Force Study Strategy Guide, to protect “vital interests,” including: “commerce; secure energy supplies; [and] freedom of action.” In the 21stcentury, these pillars of power are bolstered by the Cyber Command and the coming Space Force.
The use of the Army, Navy, and Air Force—the three dimensions of power—means that the US is already close to achieving “full spectrum dominance.” Brown University’s Cost of War project documents current US military involvement in 80 countries—or 40% of the world’s nations. This includes 65 so-called counterterrorism training operations and 40 military bases (though others think the number of bases is much higher). By this measure, “full spectrum dominance” is nearly half way complete. But the map leaves out US and NATO bases, training programs, and operations in Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine.
As the US expands its space operations—the fourth dimension of warfare—the race towards “full spectrum dominance” quickens. Space has long been militarized in the sense that the US uses satellites to guide missiles and aircraft. But the new doctrine seeks to weaponize space by, for instance, blurring the boundaries between high-altitude military aircraft and space itself. Today’s space power will be harnessed by the US to ensure dominance over the satellite infrastructure that allows for the modern world of internet, e-commerce, GPS, telecommunications, surveillance, and war-fighting.
Since the 1950s, the United Nations has introduced various treaties to prohibit the militarization and weaponization of space—the most famous being the Outer Space Treaty (1967). These treaties aim to preserve space as a commons for all humanity. The creation of the US Space Force is a blatant violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of those treaties. In more recent decades, successive US governments have unilaterally rejected treaties to reinforce and expand the existing space-for-peace agreements. In 2002, the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972), allowing it to expand its long-range missile systems. In 2008, China and Russia submitted to the UN Conference on Disarmament the proposed Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects. This would have preserved the space-as-a-commons principle and answered US claims that “enemies” would use space as a battleground against US satellites.
But peace is not the goal. The goal is “full spectrum dominance,” so the US rejected the offer. China and Russia introduced the proposed the treaty again in 2014—and again the US rejected it. Earlier this year, the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. Last month, President Trump sent an unclassified memo on the new Space Directive-4 to the Vice President, Joint Chiefs of Staff, NASA, and the Secretaries of Defense and State.
The document makes for chilling and vital reading. It recommends legislating for the training of US forces “to ensure unfettered access to, and freedom to operate in, space, and to provide vital capabilities to joint and coalition forces.” Crucially, this doctrine includes “peacetime and across the spectrum of conflict.” As well as integrating space forces with the intelligence community, the memo recommends establishing a Chief of Staff of the Space Force, who will to join the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The memo also says that US space operations will abide by “international law.” But given that the US has rejected anti-space weapons treaties, it is barely constrained by international law.
In late-2017, Space.com reported on a $26.3m Department of Defense contract with Lockheed Martin to build lasers for fighter jets under the Laser Advancements for Next-generation Compact Environments program. The report says that the lasers will be ready by 2021. The article links to Doug Graham, the Vice President of Missile Systems and Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. In the original link Graham reveals that the Air Force laser “is an example of how Lockheed Martin is using a variety of innovative technologies to transform laser devices into integrated weapon systems.”
As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) states in a projection out to the year 2050: “Economies are becoming increasingly dependent upon space-based systems … By 2050, space-based weapon systems may also be deployed, which could include nuclear weapons.” But this is extremely reckless. Discussing technologies, including the artificial intelligence on which weapons systems are increasingly based, another MoD projection warns of “the potential for disastrous outcomes, planned and unplanned … Various doomsday scenarios arising in relation to these and other areas of development present the possibility of catastrophic impacts, ultimately including the end of the world, or at least of humanity.”
“Full spectrum dominance” is not only a danger to the world, it is a danger to US citizens who would also suffer the consequences, if and when something goes wrong with their leaders’ complicated space weapons.
The Guardian of Judea
By Devon Nola | March 19, 2019
In the last week, we saw yet another organised smear campaign of hate and slander orchestrated by Jewish interest groups and Labour Party affiliates wielded against Internationally acclaimed Jazz musician, Gilad Atzmon. A protest was planned for Atzmon’s concert at The Vortex Jazz Club after numerous emails from local Labour Council members and members of these groups demanded the cancellation of the gig fell on deaf ears. They claimed Atzmon plays ‘Nazi-apologist Jazz.’ Personally, I’m not familiar with the genre. The chief organiser was Jewdas, a group that qualifies itself as “Radical Jewish Voices”. The four co-sponsors were: Momentum, an alleged grass-roots collective, Socialists Against Antisemitism, whose name is self-explanatory if not contradictory, London Young Labour and The Jewish Labour Movement.
What is most interesting is this event was supported and promoted by journalist for The Guardian, Owen Jones. It’s always shocking when a journalist supports any sort of censorship. Jones posted the event on his Facebook page and within two days, managed to rack up over 350 comments telling him what a huge mistake he was making, the accusations against Atzmon were false and totally absurd, and might he provide some proof to substantiate the claims. Many came from avid readers and supporters of Jones’ usual commentary but were aghast at his support of preventing a respected musician from earning a living and they expressed this in no uncertain terms.
When Jones finally did respond, it was to attach a hit piece that came from an ultra-Zionist website full of misquotes, quotes out of context and even completely fabricated quotes. Rather than sifting through Atzmon’s prolific body of written work to decipher if the accusations against him were legitimate, Jones instead chose this piecemeal missive full of lies.
Realising, at that point, Jones hadn’t actually read anything by Atzmon, I attached a copy of a page from Atzmon’s book, “The Wondering Who”. I assumed once he read Atzmon’s thoughts, directly, versus some bastardised fictional version, he would realise his error in judgement and deliver a swift apology. This is what an honest journalist, a person with integrity would do. Astonishingly, Owen Jones chose a different path. He didn’t admit to his mistake (giving him the benefit of the doubt, here), but rather removed the entire thread, or shall I say, the evidence. This was a calculated, conscious decision, by Jones, suggesting he was fully aware of the deceit being peddled in both the protest he was supporting and the piece he scrounged up to defend it. This isn’t the behaviour one expects from a journalist. It’s typically something one finds in a sleazy tabloid writer whose articles are printed next to ads for miracle serums to cure baldness or penis enlargement.
Some time ago, Atzmon coined the phrase “The Guardian of Judea” for the well-known paper. Witnessing one of their journalists engaged in such a slanderous campaign, where completely unfounded accusations of antisemitism, Nazi apologist and holocaust-denier are being lobbed at an innocent man like tennis balls on the final Sunday of Wimbledon, I’m inclined to think this is yet one more astute observation by the legendary saxophonist.
List of signatories to letters demanding the ouster of Gilad Atzmon:
As’ad AbuKhalil, The Angry Arab News Service, Turlock, CA
Suha Afyouni, solidarity activist, Beirut, LEBANON
Max Ajl, essayist, rabble-rouser, proprietor of Jewbonics blog site, Ithaca, NY
Haifaa Al-Moammar, activist, stay-at-home mom, and marathon walker, Los Angeles, CA
Electa Arenal, professor emerita, CUNY Graduate Center/Hispanic & Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Women’s Studies, New York, NY
Gabriel Ash, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Geneva, SWITZERLAND
Joel Beinin, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
Dan Berger, Wild Poppies Collective, Philadelphia, PA
Chip Berlet, Boston, MA
Nazila Bettache, activist, Montréal, CANADA
Sam Bick, Tadamon!, Immigrant Workers Center, Montréal, Québec
Max Blumenthal, author; writing fellow, The Nation, New York, NY
Lenni Brenner, author, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, New York, NY
Café Intifada
Paola Canarutto, Rete-ECO (Italian Network of Jews against the Occupation), Torino, ITALY
Paulette d’Auteuil, National Jericho Movement, Albuquerque, NM
Susie Day, Monthly Review, New York, NY
Ali Hocine Dimerdji, PhD student at The University of Nottingham, in Nottingham, UK
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, professor emerita, California State University
Todd Eaton, Park Slope Food Coop Members for Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions, Brooklyn, NY
Mark Elf, Jews sans frontieres
S. EtShalom, registered nurse, Philadelphia, PA
Benjamin Evans, solidarity activist, Chicago, IL
First of May Anarchist Alliance
Sherna Berger Gluck, professor emerita, California State University/Israel Divestment Campaign, CA
Neta Golan, International Solidarity Movement
Tony Greenstein, Secretary Brighton Unemployed Centre/UNISON, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, Brighton, UK
Andrew Griggs, Café Intifada, Los Angeles, CA
Jenny Grossbard, artist, designer, writer and fighter, New York, NY
Freda Guttman, activist, Montréal, CANADA
Adam Hanieh, lecturer, Department of Development Studies/SOAS, University of London, UK
Swaneagle Harijan, anti-racism, social justice activism, Seattle, WA
Sarah Hawas, researcher and solidarity activist, Cairo, EGYPT
Stanley Heller, “The Struggle” Video News, moderator “Jews Who Speak Out”
Mostafa Henaway, Tadamon!, Immigrant Workers Center, Montréal, CANADA
Elise Hendrick, Meldungen aus dem Exil/Noticias de una multipátrida, Cincinnati, OH
Doug Henwood, Left Business Observer, New York, NY
Ken Hiebert, activist, Ladysmith, CANADA
Elizabeth Horowitz, solidarity activist, New York, NY
Adam Hudson, writer/blogger, San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Dhruv Jain, Researcher at the Jan Van Eyck Academie and PhD student at York University, Paris, FRANCE
Tom Keefer, an editor of the journal Upping the Anti, Toronto, CANADA
Karl Kersplebedeb, Left Wing Books, Montréal, CANADA
Anne Key, Penrith, Cumbria, UK
Mark Klein, activist, Toronto, CANADA
Bill Koehnlein, Brecht Forum, New York, NY
L.A. Palestine Labor Solidarity Committee, Los Angeles, CA
Mark Lance, Georgetown University/Institute for Anarchist Studies, Washington, DC
David Landy, author, Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights: Diaspora Jewish Opposition to Israel, Dublin, IRELAND
Bob Lederer, Pacifica/WBAI producer, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, New York, NY
Matthew Lyons, Three Way Fight, Philadelphia, PA
Karen MacRae, solidarity activist, Toronto, CANADA
Heba Farouk Mahfouz, student activist, blogger, Cairo, EGYPT
Marvin Mandell and Betty Reid Mandell, co-editors, New Politics, West Roxbury, MA
Ruth Sarah Berman McConnell, retired teacher, DeLand, FL
Kathleen McLeod, poet, Brisbane, Australia
Karrie Melendres, Los Angeles, CA
Matt Meyer, Resistance in Brooklyn, New York, NY
Amirah Mizrahi, poet and educator, New York, NY
mesha Monge-Irizarry, co-director of Education Not Incarceration; SF MOOC City commissioner, San Francisco, CA
Matthew Morgan-Brown, solidarity activist, Ottawa, CANADA
Michael Novick, People Against Racist Terror/Anti-Racist Action, Los Angeles, CA
Saffo Papantonopoulou, New School Students for Justice in Palestine, New York, NY
Susan Pashkoff, Jews Against Zionism, London, UK
Tom Pessah, UC Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine, Berkeley, CA
Marie-Claire Picher, Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB), New York, NY
Sylvia Posadas (Jinjirrie), Kadaitcha, Noosa, AUSTRALIA
Roland Rance, Jews Against Zionism, London, UK
Danielle Ratcliff, San Francisco, CA
Liz Roberts, War Resisters League, New York, NY
Emma Rosenthal, contributor, Shifting Sands: Jewish Women Confront the Israeli Occupation, Los Angeles, CA
Penny Rosenwasser, PhD, Oakland, CA
Suzanne Ross, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, The Riverside Church Prison Ministry, New York, NY
Gabriel San Roman, Orange County Weekly, Orange County, CA
Ian Saville, performer and lecturer, London, UK
Joel Schwartz, CSEA retiree/AFSCME, New York, NY
Tali Shapiro, Anarchists Against the Wall, Boycott From Within, Tel Aviv, OCCUPIED PALESTINE
Simona Sharoni, SUNY, author, Gender & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Plattsburgh, NY
Jaggi Singh, No One Is Illegal-Montreal/Solidarity Across Borders, Montréal, CANADA
Michael S. Smith, board member, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, NY
Pierre Stambul, Union juive française pour la paix (French Jewish Union for Peace), Paris, FRANCE
Muffy Sunde, Los Angeles, CA
Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Jacobin, Bronx, NY
Tadamon! (http://www.tadamon.ca/), Montréal, CANADA
Ian Trujillo, atheist, Los Angeles, CA
Gabriella Turek, PhD, Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Henry Walton, SEIU, retired, Los Angeles, CA
Bill Weinberg, New Jewish Resistance, New York, NY
Abraham Weizfeld, author, The End of Zionism and the liberation of the Jewish People, Montreal, CANADA
Ben White, author, Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination, and Democracy, Cambridge, UK
Laura Whitehorn, former political prisoner, NYS Task Force on Political Prisoners, New York, NY
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, founding member, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG)
Asa Winstanley, journalist for Electronic Intifada, Al-Akhbar and others, London, UK
Ziyaad Yousef, solidarity activist
and also:
Ali Abunimah
Naseer Aruri, Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Omar Barghouti, human rights activist
Hatem Bazian, Chair, American Muslims for Palestine
Andrew Dalack, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network
Haidar Eid, Gaza
Nada Elia, US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
Toufic Haddad
Kathryn Hamoudah
Adam Hanieh, Lecturer, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London
Mostafa Henaway, Tadamon! Canada
Monadel Herzallah, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network
Nadia Hijab, author and human rights advocate
Andrew Kadi
Abir Kobty, Palestinian blogger and activist
Joseph Massad, Professor, Columbia University, NY
Danya Mustafa, Israeli Apartheid Week US National Co-Coordinator & Students for Justice in Palestine- University of New Mexico
Dina Omar, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine
Haitham Salawdeh, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network
Sobhi Samour, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London
Khaled Ziada, SOAS Palestine Society, London
Rafeef Ziadah, poet and human rights advocate
The Zionists’ Fight Extends Beyond Palestine
By Miko Peled | Mint Press News | March 14, 2019
The Zionists’ suppression of freedoms extends beyond Palestine, particularly when it comes to freedom of speech about Israel. Zionist agents, planted in centers of power around the world, are busy silencing those who would criticize Israel. Using an array of highly effective methods, they have been successful at getting laws passed by legislators, getting major political figures falsely accused of making anti-Semitic statements, and establishing a new, Zionist-manufactured definition of what it means to be anti-Semitic.
Earlier this year the United States Senate passed Resolution S-1 that gives the federal government the right to penalize anyone calling to boycott Israel. Then — being a black, Muslim woman who dared to challenge the patriarchy, white supremacy, and Zionism and thus alienate the Washington establishment — Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was targeted and accused of anti-Semitism.
As I had reported in 2017 and again in 2018, this disturbing political witch hunt is not limited to the U.S. In the U.K., members of the Labor Party, including the leader Jeremy Corbyn, have been under attack for several years, with the latest targets being MP Chris Williamson of the U.K. Labour Party and journalist Asa Winstanley. They are latest of a long list of members of the party who have been suspended from the party because of bogus accusations of anti-Semitism.
A campaign to bring down Corbyn
Israel is terrified of a Corbyn government in the U.K. and we can expect that it will stop at nothing in order to bring him down. The campaign to undermine him includes the office of the Israeli prime minister. This was made evident in August of 2018 when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Corbyn receive “unequivocal condemnation” for attending “a memorial service for the Munich massacre terrorists.” Corbyn attended no such memorial, as I was able to demonstrate in a piece published by MintPress News at the time.
The Zionist fear of Corbyn is a result of his lifelong commitment to justice and his unwavering support for all oppressed people, including the Palestinians. He has said on more than one occasion, and as recently as this month, that the U.K. must freeze its arms sales to Israel. However, attacks aimed directly at Corbyn are not enough to get the job done. Israel and its agents around the U.K. have been engaged in a campaign of lies and smears, the results of which are shown in this report that was put out by the Labour Party and published by the BBC.
The report points out, among other things:
- 673 complaints of anti-Semitism by Labour Party members were received — a Labour spokesman said this represented about 0.1 percent of the membership;
- 96 members were immediately suspended after complaints were made, and a further 211 were told they would be investigated;
- 146 members received a first warning, and 220 cases did not have sufficient evidence of a breach of party rules for an investigation;
- Of the 307 who were suspended or notified of an investigation, 44 members left the party.
These are complaints that pertain to members of the party. An additional 433 complaints were received by the party that were not about Labour Party members. Clearly, the campaign by the pro-Israel groups aims to overwhelm the Labour Party into submission and bring about the fall of Corbyn by using a barrage of anti-Semitism accusations.
Jeremy Corbyn is a man who has stood against racism and injustice his entire career. His leadership has energized the party, which has gained more than half a million new members over that span. However, one has to wonder if there is an argument being made somewhere that Corbyn is the reason for this sudden outbreak of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. Again, one can only guess that the Zionist goal is to bring the Labour Party to exhaustion, and to the conclusion that Corbyn is too much trouble for his worth and thus must be replaced for the good of the party.
Chris Williamson
Slated to be Corbyn’s number-two man, at least in the minds of Corbyn supporters, Williamson is no less principled and no less a fighter than Corbyn himself. He is charismatic and he and Corbyn could make a powerful progressive leadership team, which is why he had to be taken down.
The hope, one assumes, on the pro-Israel flank of the Labour Party is that Corbyn’s current deputy, Tom Watson — who is an avid Zionist and not at all a Corbyn supporter — will take over once Corbyn steps down, or rather, once Corbyn is taken down by Zionist agencies working for Israel. Watson, for his part, is already rallying supporters behind him in a new group he formed within the Labour Party, called “Future Britain.”
Williamson, like Corbyn, is dedicated to the idea of democratizing the Labour Party, which means taking control from the party establishment and giving it to the members. Combine that with his pro-Palestine views and he is the perfect target for an anti-Semitism smear.
Asa Winstanley
According to a report in the Electronic Intifada, a publication for which Asa Winstanley writes, the Labour Party has initiated disciplinary proceedings against Winstanley, who is also a member of the party. This was first published by a journalist from the Jewish Chronicle — which is a Zionist, anti-Palestinian publication. Winstanley is a journalist whose views on Palestine are clear, uncompromising and precise [he insisted on shunning Gilad Atzmon as ‘antisemitic’]. No doubt he was placed on the list of members to be smeared and suspended because of his honest writing on Palestine.
Zionist oppression and brutal tactics against the people of Palestine, and the attempts to silence their supporters around the world, are not going to end on their own. People of conscience must stand for Palestine; people whose right to free speech is being denied must stand up and stand together; steps must be taken to end the dominant influence and automatic legitimacy that Zionism and its agents enjoy around the world.
Israel military censor banned, partially redacted more than 3,000 news items in 2018
MEMO | March 18, 2019
Israel’s military censor “prohibited the publication of 363 news articles in 2018” in addition to “partially or fully redacting a total of 2,712 news items submitted to it for prior review”, reported +972 Magazine, a significant spike in “censor intervention”.
According to the news site, “the censor barred more news stories from publication in 2018 than in almost any other year this decade”. With respect to articles published after partial redaction, only 2014 saw “similarly substantial censorship of the press”.
+972 Magazine reported that “the spike in censorship compared to 2017 is significant: in the last year, the IDF Censor prevented the publication of 92 more articles than it did in the year prior, while it partially or fully redacted an additional 625 stories.”
Overall, “over the past eight years, the censor has prohibited a total of 2,661 news stories from seeing the light of day,” the article added.
As +972 Magazine explained, “all media outlets in Israel are required to submit articles relating to security and foreign relations to the IDF Censor for review prior to publication.”
Israel is unique in the so-called “democratic world” in compelling journalists and publications to “submit their reporting for review prior to publication”, and the only country “where that censorship can be criminally enforced”.
In addition, “the Israeli military censor’s powers extend beyond news outlets to include authority to review before publication and censor books and items in the State Archives.”
How Online Users responded to YouTube’s termination of Middle East Observer – Facts & Figures
Middle East Observer | March 14, 2019
Hello fellow observers,
Just five days after YouTube’s termination of our channel, here’s some of the major developments that occurred in response to this decision:
a) the number of ‘Patrons’ supporting us financially on our Patreon page grew by an outstanding 70%, opening up much greater opportunities for MEO to not only become more sustainable but to increase its content production too (e.g. one more Patron and we will reach 30 total Patrons – which means we’ll be committing to producing at least 6 video translations/month, in line with our current stated goal on Patreon – a significant milestone indeed!).
b) the number of subscribers on our website mailing list grew by %170
c) the number of our Twitter followers grew by 200%
d) major spikes in the number of ‘likes’ and general engagement on our Facebook page
Many heartfelt thanks once again to everyone who supported us with a word of solidarity, a subscription to our website mailing list or social media, and/or crucially, a financial sponsorship of our project on our Patreon page!
Meanwhile, ALOT is going on behind the scenes, most notably:
1. We are gradually uploading some of the more than 250 videos that were taken down by YouTube on to our Daily Motion channel. We will embed every video that we upload on our Daily Motion channel on to our website aswell as stand alone posts.
2. We are replacing the ‘dead’ embedded video links on our website with the Daily Motion video links (this is a gradual process, but you may have noticed that we have already replaced many dead links with the functional Daily Motion versions).
3. We are working on a more detailed and rigorous long-term strategic plan for MEO which takes into consideration the relatively huge developments (both positive and negative) that MEO experienced over the past one week. We will share some details of this strategic vision with you in due time.
Thanks again to every single person who stood in solidarity with MEO and the freedom to express alternative news and views.
French MPs approve anti-riot bill amid Yellow Vest protests, rights watchdog sounds alarm
A protester is pushed back by police during a demonstration of the “yellow vests” movement in Nantes, France, February 16, 2019. © REUTERS/Stephane Mahe
RT | March 13, 2019
The upper house of the French parliament has greenlighted a bill giving police broad powers to quell unrest. It comes as a rights watchdog warned of civil liberties being undermined in France due to crackdowns on protest.
Following hours of tense debate on Tuesday, the French Senate approved an anti-hooligan (‘anti-casseurs’) bill by a margin of 210 votes to 115.
The bill has courted widespread controversy, having been denounced as “liberticide” by the left, and hailed as a “the law of protections” by the French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner.
The government insists that the legislation will allow to distinguish between law-abiding protesters and violent rioters, while providing protection for both law enforcement and Yellow Vest demonstrators. Speaking ahead of the vote on Tuesday, Castaner defended the bill, saying that it “safeguards the right to demonstrate,” while brushing off concerns that it encroaches on civil freedoms.
“This text does not include an ounce of arbitrariness,” he said.
His view has not been shared by many among the opposition.
Senator Jerome Durain of the center-left Socialist Party (PS) slammed the draft as “useless, imprecise and dangerous,” arguing that it will only foment the unrest.
“The dramatization of the situation does not serve anyone,” Durain said.
The bill, which was first introduced in parliament last year, has already received backing from the National Assembly, France’s lower house. While the National Assembly overwhelmingly supported the bill in February, the vote saw an unprecedented number of abstentions within French President Emmanuel Macron’s own La Republique En Marche (LREM) party. Some 50 LREM lawmakers chose not to approve the bill and one MP, Matthieu Orphelin, went as far as to desert the party ranks altogether in the wake of the vote.
Many took issue with the provisions of the bill that prohibit protesters from wearing masks at rallies and allow police to single out and ban certain “troublemakers” from attending the ‘acts.’
The Yellow Vest protests have been marred by violence from both sides. While the French authorities blame radicals for inciting violence, protesters accuse the police of disproportionate use of force that has resulted in limbs getting torn off, eyes lost and other life-changing injuries for demonstrators who were caught up in the clashes.
In the run-up to the bill’s adoption, the head of the Defenseur des Droits de l’Homme (Defender of Human Rights) body, Jacques Toubon, called for change to the ham-fisted policing methods employed by the state, which he said was a legacy of the state of emergency imposed after a spate of Islamist-inspired terrorist attacks in November 2015. The state of emergency was lifted in 2017, but it has weakened the French legal system by giving police more leeway to crack down on rights and freedoms under the pretext of protecting national security, Toubon argued.
It “helped lay the foundations for a new legal order, based on suspicion, in which fundamental rights and liberties have been somewhat weakened,” Toubon said, calling it a “poisoned pill” that “gradually contaminated our common law, undermining the rule of law as well as the rights and freedoms.”
The law will now be referred to the Constitutional Council, which will ensure none of its points violate the constitution. Some lawmakers said they are placing hope on the Council to erase or modify the most troubling provisions.
“We are now relying on the Council to purge this text of all its unconstitutionality,” Maryse Carrere of the social-liberal The Radical Movement (MR) said.
Read more:
Yellow Vest protester tipped out of wheelchair onto ground by police (VIDEO)
No, Dual Loyalty Isn’t Okay
Many in congress and the media won’t discuss loyalty to Israel
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • March 12, 2019
The Solons on Capitol Hill are terrified of the expression “dual loyalty.” They are afraid because dual loyalty means that one is not completely a loyal citizen of the country where one was born, raised and, presumably, prospered. It also suggests something more perverse, and that is dual citizenship, which in its present historic and social context particularly refers to the Jewish congressmen and women who just might be citizens of both the United States and Israel. There is particular concern over the issue at the moment because a freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar has let the proverbial cat out of the bag by alluding to American-Jewish money buying uncritical support for a foreign country which is Israel without any regard to broader U.S. interests, something that everyone in Washington knows is true and has been the case for decades but is afraid to discuss due to inevitable punishment by the Israel Lobby.
Certainly, the voting record in Congress would suggest that there are a lot of congress critters who embrace dual loyalty, with evidence that the loyalty is not so much dual as skewed in favor of Israel. Any bill relating to Israel or to Jewish collective interests, like the currently fashionable topic of anti-Semitism, is guaranteed a 90% plus approval rating no matter what it says or how much it damages actual U.S. interests. Thursday’s 407 to 23 vote in the House of Representatives on a meaningless and almost unreadable “anti-hate” resolution was primarily intended to punish Ilhan Omar and to demonstrate that the Democratic Party is indeed fully committed to sustaining the exclusive prerogatives of the domestic Jewish community and the Jewish state.
The voting on the resolution was far from unusual and would have been unanimous but for the fact that twenty-three Republicans voted “no” because they wanted a document that was only focused on anti-Semitism, without any references to Muslims or other groups that might be encountering hatred in America. That the congress should be wasting its time with such nonsense is little more than a manifestation of Jewish power in the United States, part of a long-sought goal of making any criticism of Israel a “hate” crime punishable by fining and imprisonment. And congress is always willing to play its part. Famously, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) official Steven Rosen once boasted that he could take a napkin and within 24 hours have the signatures of 70 Senators on it, reflective of the ability of the leading pro-Israel organization to impel the U.S. legislature to respond uncritically to its concerns.
Ilhan Omar has certainly been forced to apologize and explain her position as she is under sustained attack from the left, right and center as well as from the White House. One congressman told her that “Questioning support for the US-Israel relationship is unacceptable.” Another said “there are many reasons to support Israel, but there is no reason to oppose Israel” while yet another one declared that all in Congress are committed to insuring that the “United States and Israel stand as one.”
But Omar has defended herself without abandoning her core arguments and she has further established her bona fides as a credible critic of what passes for U.S. foreign policy by virtue of an astonishing attack on former President Barack Obama, whom she criticized obliquely in an interview Friday, saying “We can’t be only upset with Trump. His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was. That’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.” Presumably Omar was referring to Obama’s death by drone program and his destruction of Libya, among his other crimes. Everything she said about the smooth talking but feckless Obama is true and could be cast in even worse terms, but to hear the truth from out of the mouth of a liberal Democrat is something like a revelation that all progressives are not ideologically fossilized and fundamentally brain dead. One wonders what she thinks of the Clintons?
The Democrats are in a tricky situation that will only wind up hurting relationships with some of their core constituencies. If they come down too hard on Omar – a Muslim woman of color who wears a head covering – it will not look good to some key minority voters they have long courted. If they do not, the considerable Jewish political donations to the Democratic Party will certainly be diminished if not slowed to a trickle and much of the media will turn hostile. So they are trying to bluff their way through by uttering the usual bromides. Senator Kristin Gillibrand of New York characteristically tried to cover both ends by saying “Those with critical views of Israel, such as Congresswoman Omar, should be able to express their views without employing anti-Semitic tropes about money or influence.” Well, of course, it is all about Jews, money buying access and obtaining political power, with the additional element of supporting a foreign government that has few actual interests in common with the United States, isn’t it?
As Omar put it, “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country…” She also tweeted to a congressional critic that “I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committee.” Gilad Atzmon, a well known Jewish critic of Israel, observed drily that “How reassuring is it that the only American who upholds the core values of liberty, patriotism and freedom is a black Muslim and an immigrant…”
But such explicatory language about the values that Americans used to embrace before Israel-worship rendered irrelevant the Constitution clearly made some lightweights from the GOP side nervous. Megan McCain, daughter of thankfully deceased “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” Senator John McCain appears on a mind numbing talk-television program called The View where she cried as she described her great love for fellow Israel-firster warmonger former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman as “like family,” before launching into her own “informed” analysis: “I take the hate crimes rising in this country incredibly seriously and I think what’s happening in Europe is really scary. On both sides it should be called out. And just because I don’t technically have Jewish family that are blood-related to me doesn’t mean that I don’t take this seriously and it is very dangerous, very dangerous… what Ilhan Omar is saying is very scary to me.”
The New York Times also had a lot to say, covering the story on both its news and op-eds pages daily. Columnist Michelle Goldberg, who is usually sensible, criticizes Omar because of her “minimizing the legacy of the holocaust” and blames her because “she’s committed what might be called, in another context, a series of microaggressions — inadvertent slights that are painful because they echo whole histories of trauma.” In other words, if some Jews are indeed deliberately corrupting American politics on behalf of Israel and against actual U.S. interests using money to do so it is not a good idea to say anything about it because it might revive bad historical – or not so historical – memories. It is perpetual victimhood employed as an excuse for malfeasance on the part of Jewish groups and the Jewish state.
Another Times columnist Bret Stephens also takes up the task of defenestrating Omar with some relish, denying that “claims that Israel… uses money to bend others to its will, or that its American supporters ‘push for allegiance to a foreign country” are nothing more than the “repackage[ing] falsehoods commonly used against Jews for centuries.” He attributes to her “insidious cunning” and “anti-Jewish bigotry” observing how “she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he called Congress “Israeli-occupied” territory.” And it’s all “… how anti-Zionism has abruptly become an acceptable point of view in reputable circles. It’s why anti-Semitism is just outside the frame, bidding to get in.” He concludes by asking why the Democratic Party “has so much trouble calling out a naked anti-Semite in its own ranks.”
Stephens clearly does not accept that what Omar claims just might actually be true. Perhaps he is so irritated by her because he himself is a perfect example of someone who suffers from dual loyalty syndrome, or perhaps it would be better described as single loyalty to his tribe and to Israel. Review some of his recent columns in The Times if you do not believe that to be true. He has an obsession with rooting out people that he believes to be anti-Semites and believes all the nonsense about Israel as the “only democracy in the Middle East.” In his op-ed he claims that “Israel is the only country in its region that embraces the sorts of values the Democratic Party claims to champion.” Yes, a theocratic state’s summary execution of unarmed protesters and starving civilians while simultaneously carrying out ethnic cleansing are traditional Democratic Party programs, at least as Bret sees it.
People like Stephens are unfortunately possessors of a bully pulpit and are influential. As they are public figures, they should be called out regarding where their actual loyalties lie, but no one in power is prepared to do that. Stephens wears his Jewishness on his sleeve and is pro-Israel far beyond anyone else writing at The Times. He and other dual loyalists, to be generous in describing them, should be exposed for what they are, which is the epitome of the promoters of the too “passionate attachment” with a foreign state that President George Washington once warned against. If the United States of America is not their homeland by every measure, they should perhaps consider doing Aliyah and moving to Israel. We genuine Americans would be well rid of them.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
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From the Archives
Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink
By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012
A while ago, I received an email from a friend who asked:
How can many, many respected, competitive, independent science folks be so wrong about [global warming] (if your [skeptical] premise is correct). I don’t think it could be a conspiracy, or incompetence. … Has there ever been another case when so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?
The answer to the second part of my friend’s question—“Has there ever been another case where so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?”—is easy. Yes, there are many such cases, both within and outside climate science. In fact, the graveyard of science is littered with the bones of theories that were once thought “certain” (e.g., that the continents can’t “drift,” that Newton’s laws were immutable, and hundreds if not thousands of others).
Science progresses by the overturning of theories once thought “certain.” … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Larry Johnson: U.S. Desperation Grows as Iran Is Winning
- Why don’t UK media mention the Israel lobby?
- New US shipment of 6,500 tons of military aid arrives in Israel
- Military aid to Ukraine vital for ‘US hegemony’ – Republican senator
- Zelensky’s favorite drone company at center of Ukrainian corruption alert
- The Broken Contract
- US CENTCOM’s Request for Dark Eagle Missiles Shows Shortage of Weapons and Limited Options
- Iran consolidates Strait of Hormuz control in post-war power shift, leaving US in dark
- A pause, not a ceasefire: Washington stalls, Tehran recalibrates
- US blockade crumbles as Iran turns to overland routes
- If Americans Knew
- US ships 6,500 tons of munitions, equipment to Israel in 24 hours
- A New Library in Gaza Rises From the Ashes of Destruction
- Israel’s top Jewish religious body ‘refuses to condemn’ smashing of Jesus statue
- Nun assaulted in Jerusalem amid ‘pattern’ of anti-Christian attacks by Israelis
- Former Tik Tok official describes massive pressure from Israel lobby
- Amid ceasefire violations and genocide, Israel commits piracy – Daily Update
- Five Laws and Standards That Require the US Cut Off Weapons to Israel
- Israel’s diabolical killing machine and how it targets journalists.
- The Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza — A cry at sea to the world’s dormant conscience
- Politico’s powerful parent company tells Politico they must support Israeli narrative
- No Tricks Zone
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
Aletho News 