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Egypt: A Virtual Smoking Gun?

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | March 4, 2011

On January 12, 2009, US Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James K. Glassman joined a group of Egyptian political bloggers from the Virtual Newsroom of the American University in Cairo.

Less than two months earlier, Glassman and Jared Cohen from the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff had given an on-the-record briefing on the State Department’s alliance with ten partners in the private sector—including Facebook, Google, MTV, AT&T, Howcast, Access 360 Media—to form the Alliance for Youth Movements (AYM). During the briefing, Glassman singled out Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement for special mention, saying that some of its members would be in attendance at the inaugural AYM youth summit in New York from December 3-5. Asked about “the risk of unleashing something here that is going to come back to bite you, especially with our allies,” Glassman replied:

We are very supportive of pro-democracy groups around the world. And sometimes, that puts us at odds with certain governments.

When pressed by the questioner, Glassman added:

Now, we have to work with those governments. And let me also just say, there’s a difference on an operational level between public—what we do in public diplomacy and what is often done in official diplomacy. We are communicating and engaging at the level of the public, not at the level of officials. So you know, it certainly is possible that some of these governments will not be all that happy that—at what we’re doing, but that’s what we do in public diplomacy.

Commenting on Cohen’s point that “these organizations online that are coming together are more of a new kind of civil society organization” that “eventually makes the transformation,” Glassman acknowledged that the US government has “been engaging with such civil society organizations in places like Egypt for a long time.”

As Al Jazeera revealed in a behind the scenes look at Egypt’s non-violent coup, the State Department-linked April 6 Youth Movement played a crucial role in making that “transformation,” by organizing and directing the protests that toppled America’s erstwhile ally Mubarak. The April 6 leaders also received training from the Belgrade-based Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), which works closely with the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC). The ICNC was founded and funded entirely by Peter Ackerman, the junk bond “teflon guy,” who chaired Freedom House from September 2005 until January 2009. Freedom House is funded in part by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US government-sponsored neoconservative-led regime change specialists.

On April 19, 2010, Ackerman attended an event entitled “Cyber-Dissidents and Political Change” sponsored by the George W. Bush Institute, which Glassman has headed since September 3, 2009. “Inspired by President and Mrs. Bush’s unwavering commitment to freedom for all people,” its website states, “The Bush Institute works to embolden dissidents and freedom advocates, creating a powerful network for moral support and education.” Among the cyber-dissidents in attendance at its Dallas event were Rodrigo Diamanti from Venezuela; Arash Kamangir, from Iran; Oleg Kozlovsky, from Russia; Ernesto Hernández Busto, from Cuba (who lives in Barcelona); Isaac Mao, from China; and Ahed Alhendi, from Syria. Clearly, some countries are seen as more deserving of Mr. and Mrs. Bush’s freedom advocacy than others.

In 2007, Glassman became Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a US government agency that provides propaganda to non-American overseas audiences via the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa), Radio Free Asia, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio and TV Marti). Norman J. Pattiz, the “founding father” of Radio Sawa, which is increasingly popular in Egypt, sits on BBG’s board. Pattiz is also on the national board of the Israel Policy Forum, which is “committed to a strong and enduring U.S.-Israel relationship and to advancing the shared interests of the United States and the State of Israel.” Its Israeli Advisory Council is comprised of prominent figures from the Israeli military and intelligence establishment, mostly notably David Kimche, who was once described as “Israel’s Leading Spy and Would-Be Mossad Chief.” According to a Washington Report profile:

The “man with the suitcase,” as Kimche became known by colleagues in Israel, would appear in an African country a day or two before a major coup, and leave a week later after the new regime was firmly in control, often with the aid of Israeli security teams. (One of Israel’s protege allies in Africa whom Kimche helped to groom was none other than the continent’s most infamous ruler, Col. Idi Amin of Uganda.)

Prior to his involvement with “democracy promotion,” Glassman was a resident fellow at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, the propaganda mill that hatched the “global war on terror” primarily to advance the national interest of Israel. While there he founded The American, a magazine of ideas for business leaders, published by the AEI, and was its editor-in-chief from 2005 to 2007. Clearly, his neocon paymasters were not put off by his unenviable financial track record. In his 1999 book “Dow 36,000,” written shortly before the dot-com bubble burst, he predicted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would rise to 36,000 within a few years. Commenting on the “hysteria” that fueled the deregulation-induced financial crisis nine years later, Ralph Nader singled out Glassman’s bestseller, joking that he would send it back to Glassman with one of the zeros missing.

As evidence of what a small neocon world we live in, Glassman’s co-author, Kevin A. Hassett, was an economic advisor to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. Sen. McCain, who chairs NED’s Republican wing, the International Republican Institute, recently paid a visit to Tahrir Square with his inseparable travel buddy, Joe Lieberman, “the No. 1 pro-Israel advocate and leader in Congress.” Surveying the post-revolutionary scene, an “optimistic” Sen. Lieberman declared:

“This is a remarkable situation, and frankly, we should feel very good about the assistance we have given the Egyptian military over the years since the Camp David peace with Israel, because the Egyptian military really allowed this revolution in Egypt to be peaceful and let the people carry out their desires for political freedom and economic opportunity.”

Update: Jared Cohen’s buddy, Nicole Lapin, the daughter of a former Miss Israel, has been romantically linked to Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, whom Cohen contacted in June 2009 to help keep Iranian dissidents twittering.

March 8, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Dershowitz rides shotgun for student attacking Palestinian scholar and his wife in California

By Philip Weiss on March 1, 2011

Bassam Frangieh is an Arabic scholar and translator who teaches at a California college, Claremont McKenna. I imagine that his life is framed by the Nakba; his family was extirpated from Jaffa in 1948; they owned orange groves; he was born in a refugee camp. In 2006, he had the nerve to attack Israel over the 2006 Lebanon invasion and describe Hizbullah as the national resistance.

Now he is being smeared as pro-terrorist by Charles Johnson, a journalist at Claremont McKenna, who published this attack in the National Review, citing the usual fragmentary statements about Hamas and Hezbollah. It includes this McCarthyite pirouette:

Frangieh’s radicalism is shared by his wife, Aleta Wenger. A former State Department official who worked on the Middle Eastern desk, Ms. Wenger is currently director of Claremont’s Center for Global Education and, as such, is the public face of the college overseas. Like her husband, she takes a conspiratorial view of Israel’s military, accusing it, without evidence, of bombing universities and hospitals.

I’ve been to Gaza. I saw the ruins of the gene sequencing building at the Islamic University and of Al Quds Hospital. It is not clear to me who is pushing back, though apparently the Claremont administration is defending Frangieh on free speech grounds.

Johnson devoted a piece to Frangieh’s wife last month, too. And last night he stated in a letter to Claremont McKenna execs that he is getting help from Alan Dershowitz:

I should add that all of the material that I or The Claremont Independent published regarding Professor Bassam Frangieh has been reviewed by my counsel and by Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School. The primary source material that I and The Claremont Independent published was translated by three different translators at considerable personal expense.

In the same piece Johnson says “nearly the entirety of the Government Department” at Claremont McKenna is on his side. I wonder how many of them know the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the role it is now playing in American politics…

March 1, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Iraq: Security Forces Raid Press Freedom Group

Equipment, Documents Seized in 2 a.m. Break-In

HRW | February 26, 2011

(New York) – Iraqi authorities should immediately investigate a raid by security forces on the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO), a prominent Iraqi press freedom group, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch also called on the government to ensure the speedy and safe return of all seized equipment and documents.

At about 2 a.m. on February 23, 2011, more than 20 armed men, some of them wearing brown military uniforms and red berets, and others wearing black military uniforms with skull-and-cross-bones insignia on their helmets, pulled up in Humvees outside the group’s office in Baghdad and broke in, a witness told Human Rights Watch. The security forces conducted a destructive search of the office that lasted more than an hour and seized the organization’s computers, external hard drives, cameras, cell phones, CDs, documents, and several flak jackets and helmets marked “Press,” the witness said.

“This raid on the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory shows the contempt of Iraqi authorities for groups that challenge the state’s human rights record,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

A spokesman for the Baghdad Operations Command confirmed to Human Rights Watch that the men were part of the Iraqi army but gave few other details.

Ziyad al-Ajili, the group’s executive director, told Human Rights Watch that the authorities “were obviously sending us a message to stop our work of supporting journalists…. This kind of governmental intimidation is precisely what we try to shed light on.” In Iraqi television interviews over the days leading up to the raid, al-Ajili voiced support for the right of Iraqis to protest peacefully and the media’s right to report on the protests.

Human Rights Watch visited the group’s office the morning after the raid and saw extensive damage, including broken furniture, destroyed equipment, kicked-in doors, and ripped-up posters and literature for the organization’s events, such as their annual “Press Courage Awards.” Framed photographs of journalists killed in Iraq since 2003 were strewn on the floor, covered in broken glass.

Human Rights Watch expressed concern that authorities would not return the computer hard drives and other electronic data storage devices seized from the group.

Al-Ajili said he fears that the authorities used the raid as a pretext to close the office, which serves as an informal gathering point for local journalists. In late January, the group held an awards ceremony in Baghdad, honoring investigative journalists who had uncovered corruption and other wrongdoing.

Although improvements in security since 2008 have reduced the assaults against media workers, journalists and press freedom advocates remain at risk in Iraq. On February 21, Human Rights Watch released a survey report, “At a Crossroads: Human Rights in Iraq Eight Years After the US-led Invasion,” which documents attacks against media and press restrictions. The report calls on the government to protect the rights of journalists and to amend its penal code and other laws that violate freedom of speech.

February 27, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

6 Threats to Free and Open Access to the Internet

Activist Post | February 23, 2011

Many of us believe the Internet to be open and free for us to explore all known information.  Indeed, it is true that we currently can surf to any active website with our browser, and we can start a website or blog on any topic we wish to discuss.  And it is quite a profound concept that everyone with a smart phone literally has all of the world’s knowledge in the palm of their hand.

Ben Franklin knew well the importance of free access to information when he founded the first public library in America to share knowledge with those without the means to their own books.  Today, he surely would consider the Internet’s unprecedented access to information, and ability to communicate it instantly, as the ultimate level playing field of economic mobility and freedom.

However, this access is now under threat of authoritarian control.  First, it is important to note that the gears of the Internet have always been controlled by central authorities, as Douglas Rushkoff recently wrote, “From its Domain Name Servers to its IP addresses, the Internet depends on highly centralized mechanisms to send our packets from one place to another.”

Therefore, the idea that our movements on the Web are even remotely private or untraceable is false.  The central “authorities” who control the gears of the machine know exactly where you have been, while Google and the CIA have even developed ways of knowing where you’re going next as well.  It’s very creepy to know that our every move is being tracked, traced, and databased, but it has been happening from day one on the Internet, and will likely continue to happen despite the violation of basic rights to our privacy.

Because Internet privacy has never been possible in the current web infrastructure, any proposed “privacy law” would just seem to pay lip service to the idea if it doesn’t address decentralizing the control grid.  As Rushkoff pointed out, “I’m not trying to be a downer here, or knock the possibilities for networking. I just want to smash the fiction that the Internet is some sort of uncontrollable, decentralized free-for-all, so that we can get on with the business of creating something else that is.”

The focus here will be on the multitude of threats to our free access to the current Internet.  As Ben Franklin understood, information should be free and open to all, not just the select few.  Although the books in Franklin’s first library were indeed copyrighted material, they were freely shared.  We should think of the Internet as a gigantic open-source public library.  A place where information such as news, books, movies, and music should be free to view while we’re visiting the library.

Unfortunately, those who have control over the grid and influence over policymakers do not view the Internet in the same light.  It appears that they view it as an economic and propaganda playground — the last one that they don’t fully control.  Well, given the blight of proposed Internet control laws and web censorship tactics, it seems there is a calculated effort to control the free flow of information.

Below are 6 threats to our free and open access to the World Wide Web:

Legislation

The Protecting Cybersecurity as a National Asset Act, aka the “Internet Kill Switch” bill, has recently been reintroduced with a new Orwellian name, the Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act. This bill would give government the unchecked power to restrict access to the Internet if they declare a “national cyberemergency.”  CNET recently reported:

But the revised wording (PDF) continues to alarm civil liberties groups and other critics of the bill, who say the language would allow the government to shut down portions of the Internet or restrict access to certain Web sites or types of content. Even former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak didn’t actually “shut down” the Internet: at least at first, a trickle of connections continued.

The second piece of legislation that’s being reintroduced this year is the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA).  This bill, clearly written by the mega-media entertainment cartel, would empower the U.S. Department of Justice to shut down, or block access to, websites found to be illegally sharing copyrighted material.  It gives the government the authority to force Internet Service Providers to block access to websites from certain IP addresses, much like how the U.S. recently blocked the Al Jazeera feed during the Egyptian protests.  COICA has also been referred to as the “Blacklist” bill because it allows the government to blacklist or seize any domain name suspected of infringement — even if located outside the United States.

DHS Seizures

Who needs there to be laws on the books when the Department of Homeland Security appears to already be above the law. DHS has been on a rampage of arbitrarily seizing websites without due process.  In November 2010, they seized over 70 websites suspected of copyright infringement.  Just before the Super Bowl, DHS seized another lot of domains for illegally share-streaming sporting events — some merely for linking to copyrighted material.  Most recently, DHS erroneously seized 84,000 domains accused of being affiliated with child porn in some way which the DHS later admitted was done by accident.

Clearly, DHS has displayed its technical ability to censor the Internet by removing these websites. And although the domain seizures were technically accompanied by a court order, it seems that the DHS has partnered with large media outlets and sports entertainment to protect their profits. Finally, these court orders are a guilty-until-proven-innocent ruling which can irrevocably damage small businesses and the livelihoods of many people whose path to justice remains unclear.

Civil Lawsuits

Again who needs laws when you can be frivolously sued in civil court over copyright issues and bullied into settling the claim. Copyright infringement trolls like Righthaven are suing blogs and sites, and despite the only court ruling to date being a dismissal of charges due to Fair Use rights, they are still forcing many settlements.  In fact, even Internet giant Drudge Report was forced to settle a civil suit involving a copyrighted image and link.

According to Steve Green, who’s been diligently covering these lawsuits for the Las Vegas Sun, claims they are a new type of legal enterprise:

Attorneys say the Righthaven lawsuits are unprecedented in recent memory because, in the past, newspapers dealt with online copyright infringement by simply asking infringing websites to remove the infringing material and to replace it with a link to the source newspaper. Most Righthaven defendants say they were sued without warning.

Not surprisingly, most of the cases are settled out of court.  However, this tactic is a very effective intimidation tool against small websites who seek to share information.  In some cases the costs and aggravation of combating the lawsuit can force the closure of these website defendants.

Net Neutrality

It would seem that net neutrality should fall under the legislative category. However, it is actually considered more of a “market based” regulation than actual law, yet the taxpayer still funds its enforcement through the FCC.  Before identifying the reasoning behind and specific aspects of net neutrality rules, it’s worth noting that Internet futurist, Douglas Roshkoff, views the details as irrelevant because:

The moment the ‘net neutrality’ debate began was the moment the net neutrality debate was lost. For once the fate of a network — its fairness, its rule set, its capacity for social or economic reformation — is in the hands of policymakers and the corporations funding them — that network loses its power to effect change. (source)

The concept behind net neutrality is just what it says; to keep Internet access neutral for all users. But again, it is a very Orwellian term where true supporters of a free an open Internet can be tricked into supporting so-called neutrality rules.  Blogger Timothy Karr wrote, “The rule is so riddled with loopholes that it’s become clear that this FCC chairman crafted it with the sole purpose of winning the endorsement of AT&T and cable lobbyists, and not defending the interests of the tens of millions of Internet users.”

What they are, in fact, are rules to allow service providers to charge tiered price levels depending on the amount of broadband used by individual web-surfers or websites.  In other words, certain access will be discriminated against through reduced access speeds or additional fees.  Besides limiting size of the surfer’s information wave, this tiered approach to the Internet will likely make it very difficult for smaller websites to compete with the big boys who can afford to pay ISPs for unadulterated access.

Technical Censorship

Google, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Wikipedia have become the most powerful information sharing tools the world has ever known. Combined, these five websites could literally rewrite history or shape the entire flow of current information if they chose to do so. Indeed, each of these virtual libraries has been repeatedly accused of censorship in many various forms; from blatant removal of content to manipulating the searchable strength of disapproved content.

Google, who seems so powerful that they may actually run the world, recently revealed that they are tweaking their search algorithm to weaken the search engine ranking of information aggregating websites referred to as “content farms.”  It seems that Google seeks to reduce websites with little original content to the level of spammer status in their search results. What’s more, Google can wield the power of their Google Page Ranking for individual sites.  Their constantly changing algorithm may actually penalize websites for search engine optimization, as with the recent case of JC Penney losing business due to Google penalizing them for SEO.

Taxes

If Congress or local governments elect to tax websites, the level playing field on the Internet is finished.  In May 2010, the Federal Trade Commission proposed the “Drudge Tax” which would seek to tax news aggregators as if they are brick and mortar media companies. The FTC report also suggested that news aggregators be forced to pay copyright fees to link to mainstream news sources.  And in perfect wealth distribution fashion the report also discusses the “possibility of offering tax exemptions to news organizations, establishing an AmeriCorps for reporters and creating a national fund for local news organizations.”

More recently, some states have proposed taxing online retailers such as Amazon, arguing that it’s not fair for local retailers who must pay taxes for selling the exact same items.  In the past, Amazon has terminated its contracts with third-party affiliates in states who have adopted online tax laws. California Congressman, Dan Lungren, introduced the resolution Supporting the Preservation of Internet Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses aimed at preventing states from imposing these new taxes on online retailers.

What’s more, some states and even municipalities are beginning to impose a blogger fee referred to as a “privilege license” as a sort of business license for blogs.  Philadelphia has forced bloggers to pay a $50/year, or $300 lifetime, fee for the privilege of expressing ideas online.

Conclusion

It seems clear that the powers-that-be are engaged in an all-out assault the free flow of information on the Internet.  Blogs and websites must be prepared to combat the coming onslaught of news laws, regulations, and fees.  For those who believe information should be free for all who pay for Internet access, we must fight to maintain this liberty.  Stay tuned to the new blog Sites & Blogs for breaking Internet news and legal commentary about online copyright and privacy rights.

February 23, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Omar Barghouti kept from entering the U.S. for BDS speaking tour

February 18, 2011

The following press release was just issued by the publisher of Omar Barghouti’s upcoming book:

Effectively canceling a planned speaking tour, the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem has inexplicably delayed the granting of a visa for Omar Barghouti, founding member of the Palestinian Civil Society Boycott, Divestment, Sanction (BDS) campaign, due to tour the United States this April for the release of his new book, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights.

Nobel Peace Laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu called the book “lucid and morally compelling… perfectly timed to make a major contribution to this urgently needed global campaign for justice, freedom and peace.” Former President of the UN General Assembly, Father Miguel d’’Escoto Brockmann called it “timely and responsibly written by a man who understands that creative nonviolence is the only way out of the dire situation in Palestine.””

In recent years, numerous foreign scholars and experts have been subject to visa delays and denials that have prohibited them from speaking and teaching in the U.S.—a process the American Civil Liberties Union describes as “Ideological Exclusion,” which they say violates Americans’ First Amendment right to hear constitutionally protected speech by denying foreign scholars, artists, politicians and others entry to the United States.  Foreign nationals who have recently been denied visas include Fulbright scholar Marixa Lasso; Iraqi doctor Riyadh Lafta, who disputed the official Iraqi civilian death numbers in the respected British medical journal The Lancet; respected South African scholar and vocal Iraq War critic Dr. Adam Habib, and Oxford’s Tariq Ramadan, who have both recently received visas to speak in the United States after many years of delays and denials.

For the release of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, Barghouti has standing invitations for events in New York City, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Brandeis University, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. Barghouti studied, lived and worked in the United States for 11 years before permanently relocating to Jerusalem. He attended Columbia University, receiving both Bachelors and Masters degrees from the school. His U.S. born child, whom he needs a visa to visit, currently attends college in Indiana. Between 2005-2010, Barghouti visited the U.S. extensively without incident, on a 5 year visa, which only recently expired.

Barghouti’s publisher, Anthony Arnove of Haymarket Books, stated that “It’s essential authors be able to travel to promote their books and ideas, and as publishers we believe the free exchange of ideas is vital to a democratic culture. We find it frustrating that Omar’s visa is being delayed and potentially denied for political reasons and hope the Consulate will grant his visa immediately.”

Barghouti tour sponsors are calling on supporters to contact the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem and the Department of State to ask them to fulfill the promise from the Obama Administration of “promoting the global marketplace of ideas” and grant Barghouti’s visa immediately.

U.S. Consulate:
Consul General Daniel Rubinstein
U.S. Consulate General, Jerusalem
18 Agron Road, Jerusalem 94190
Tel.: +972.2.622.7230, Fax: +972.2.625.9270
jerusalemvisa@state.gov
UsConGenJerusalem@state.gov

Department of State:
Visa Services
Public Inquiries Division
202-663-1225
usvisa@state.gov

*

On Facebook: Join the group “Let Omar Barghouti Be Heard” and invite your friends



February 18, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Obama Administration Says It Can Spy On Americans, But Can’t Tell You What Law Allows It

TechDirt | February 14, 2011

Remember how President Obama, while campaigning, promised to reject the questionable spying practices of the federal government of President Bush? Yeah, forget all that. Over the past two years, we’ve seen time and time again that he’s actually extended those abuses even further. The latest to come out is that the Justice Department is now claiming that the FBI has the right to get phone records on any call made from inside the US to an international number without any oversight. You may recall a few years back that there was a similar controversy, when it came out that the FBI would regularly just call up phone companies and ask for records — despite the fact that this violates certain laws designed to protect consumer privacy. Sometimes, they would just use post-it notes.

Apparently, a year ago, McClatchy newspapers put in a FOIA request, asking for the details of a particular Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo that was mentioned in the (previously released, but highly redacted) report that showed how frequently the FBI abused the law in this manner. The OLC took its sweet time responding, but finally responded, and in the cover letter admitted that the Obama administration believes it is perfectly legal for the FBI to route around the in-place oversight for getting access to such records and claimed that the law said so.

Which law says so? Oh, see, that they can’t say. Yes, the part of the letter that explains which law lets the FBI get these records without oversight was redacted.

It’s a secret law! And here I thought, in the US, if the government was going to base actions on a particular law, at the very least, they were supposed to tell you what law. Apparently, the Justice Department under the Obama administration does not believe that to be the case.

Basically, what this means is that the federal government believes that it’s free to request information without first getting court approval — and without telling the public what law says they’re allowed to get this information. That’s not what the laws on the books seem to say at all. But, of course, big telcos such as AT&T, who are so closely tied to the government, are going to roll over and give the government such info (or, perhaps, give them direct access to the info), even if it violates other laws. Why do you think President Obama voted to support giving telcos retroactive immunity on this issue, while he was running for President despite having earlier said he was against it? Now that he’s in power, he apparently is perfectly happy to let the FBI twist the clear intentions of the law to spy on Americans without oversight, and then to refuse to reveal what law he’s relying on to make such spying on Americans without oversight legal.

McClatchy quotes Michael German, a former FBI agent, who now works for the ACLU pointing out the obvious:

“It’s wrong that they’re withholding a legal rationale that has to do with the authorities of the FBI to collect information that affects the rights of American citizens here and abroad…. The law should never be secret. We should all understand what rules we’re operating under and particularly when it comes to an agency that has a long history of abuse in its collection activities.”

And so far, it doesn’t seem like most people care. About the only politician who really seems concerned about this is Senator Wyden, who says this level of secrecy “is a serious problem” and he’s “continuing to press the executive branch to disclose more information to the public about what their government thinks the law means.” Once again, kudos to Senator Wyden for being one of a very small number of politicians who seems to consistently be concerned about the rights of individuals. But it’s sad that the rest of our elected officials aren’t up in arms about this. The government shouldn’t be spying on Americans, and if it is, it should at least have to tell Americans what law it’s basing that decision on.

February 15, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

Israeli Students Cancel Speech by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “She is Anti-Semitic”

Alternative Information Center | 06 February 2011

Students at Israel’s Bar Ilan University cancelled a planned speech by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navi Pillay, claiming that she is “anti-Semitic.”

navi_pillay

Commissioner Pillay was invited by Bar Ilan University to speak at its Faculty of Law. University students affiliated with the right-wing “Forum for Eretz Israel” plastered the campus with posters against Pillay and sent a sharply worded letter of protest to the university’s administration.

“Ms. Pillay stands at the head of a commission…which is biased and tendentious in everything concerning the Israeli-Arab conflict,” the letter stated. “This commission explicitly promotes an anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist agenda, and a large number of her statements concerning Israel as like blood libels of the worst kind.”

Examples noted in the letter include Pillay’s statements that during Israel’s military attack on the Gaza Strip in December 2008-January 2009 (Operation Cast Lead), Israel bombed hospitals for no reason and in several cases, soldiers killed Palestinians in cold blood. According to Israel’s daily Israel Hayom, the letter also contends that a report issued by Pillay concerning these military attacks repeat contentions of the Goldstone Commission that Israel committed war crimes.

“Just as the university would not allow a Holocaust denier to speak, there is no room to provide a platform for an anti-Semitic personality such as her.”

Bar Ilan University failed to respond to questions in this matter.

February 6, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

‘Egypt eliminates witnesses to violence’

Press TV – February 3, 2011

Egyptian plain-clothes policemen arrest Mohamed Abdul Quddus, rapporteur of the civil Liberties Committee and member of the Press Syndicate Council, outside the journalists syndicate in downtown Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011.

Supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak have attacked journalists in Cairo in an effort to disrupt the coverage of the violence used against anti-government protesters.

A Belgian reporter was arrested and beaten after he was accused of espionage in Cairo while al-Arabiya correspondent Ahmed Abdullah and journalists from the BBC, ABC News and CNN were attacked, CNN reported.

“The Egyptian government is employing a strategy of eliminating witnesses to their actions,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The government has resorted to blanket censorship, intimidation, and today a series of deliberate attacks on journalists carried out by pro-government mobs,” he added.

Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders Jean-Francois Juillard has condemned the violence against media personnel and has called for an immediate reaction from the international community.

A number of European leaders have also called on Egypt to stop the violence against people and urged the government to take up political reforms without delay.

Medical sources have reported that three people were killed and more than 1,500 injured in clashes that broke out between protesters and plain-clothes policemen in Cairo on Wednesday.

Cairo’s Tahrir Square has turned into a battleground as protesters defy a nighttime curfew and pledge to remain on the streets until Mubarak steps down.

February 2, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Burning Truth

By Linh Dinh – 1/31/11

Vietnam rarely makes the news these days, but there was a recent item about a journalist who died after being doused in his sleep with a chemical, then set on fire. The BBC implied that he may have been retaliated against for reporting on official misconduct.

Investigating corruption and abuse of power, Hoang Hung made plenty of enemies in high places. His best known article is about how officials in Long An, after receiving bribes from developers, kicked hundreds of farmers off their lands to make way for golf courses. After his death, a colleague quoted Hoang Hung, “We’re soldiers on the media battlefield. We must dare to speak the truth, dare to fight for social justice in spite of harassment from many quarters.” Fifty years old at his death, Hoang Hung was too young to participate in the Vietnam War. His father, however, was a Vietcong who died in battle.

The Vietnamese Communists won the war so they could eventually open the country to Capitalist sweat shops and golf courses. No wonder Hoang Hung was pissed. To make room for a rich man’s game, hundreds of Vietnamese became landless. Though Vietnam is smaller than California, it has more than twice the population. The deltas and coastline are packed with people. There, even a lawn is an alien concept, and as popular as soccer is, there are few grass fields. Vietnamese grow rice and vegetables, not grass. The last thing Vietnam needs is golf courses, but of course they aren’t built for the locals.

According to George Carlin, America doesn’t need these vast, high maintenance fields either. From a 1992 skit, “It is time to reclaim the golf courses from the wealthy and turn them over to the homeless […] Think of how big a golf course is. The ball is that fucking big! What do these pinheaded pricks need with all that land? There are over 17,000 golf courses in America. They average over 150 acres apiece. That’s 3 million plus acres, 4,820 square miles. You could build two Rhode Islands and a Delaware for the homeless on the land currently being wasted on this meaningless, mindless, arrogant, elitist, racist […] and a boring game.”

In any case, whoever killed Hoang Hung was a pro. The assassin knew that he tended to work late and often slept in his second floor home office. Waiting until the lights were out, the killer managed to climb onto the balcony without being detected just after midnight. He then entered the darkened room where his target was sound asleep inside the mosquito netting. After the attack, there were photos published in the Vietnamese press of the scorched bed and the near-naked victim lying in the hospital, where he suffered for ten days before dying. Make no mistake about this: Hoang Hung was killed as a warning to other journalists. Make too much noise and you will be roasted alive like this man.

In the 60’s, South Vietnamese monks immolated themselves to protest against the government. Their action was effective because it was a horrendous spectacle. It was visual. At the same time, South Vietnam’s best novelist, Nhat Linh, also committed suicide in protest, but he did it by ingesting poison in private. Whereas the image of a burning monk has become iconic, Nhat Linh’s death caused no international ripple whatsoever. It wasn’t visual. There is nothing to show.

Everywhere now, not least America, writers are becoming more invisible by the day, in any case. With so much mass media all the time, it would not matter if an American writer became a living torch in Times Square. They’d just hose his ashes into the gutter and point the camera at the naked cowboy. The Vietnamese Communists have also figured out that serious writers are mostly irrelevant in this cultural climate. They used to lock up poets—one, Nguyen Chi Thien, was imprisoned for a total of twenty-seven years—but now they pretty much leave poets alone. Though many are still blocked from publishing, poets are no longer jailed. To imprison a poet is to shine a spotlight on him. No one pays attention to poets anyway, no matter what they write. From the perspective of tyranny, it would be foolish to flesh out this nothingness.

Journalists, however, are a different story. They can still reach the masses. America has solved this problem by consolidating her media outlets. With countless newspapers and TV stations, there seems to be many voices speaking, but nearly all are manipulated by the same puppet master. As everyone sits in the dark, the spotlight is fixed on a tiny ring where there’s much flailing over next to nothing. Should anyone still manage to get out of line, however, America can always snuff him out, just like the Vietnamese did. Invading Iraq, we bombed the office of Al Jazeera and shelled the Palestine Hotel, killing three journalists. We also arrested Al Jazeerra’s al Sami al-Hajj and kept him in Guantanamo for six years without charge. In 2005, an American tank shot at a car carrying Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, injuring her and killing intel agent, Nicola Calipari.

On the American fringe, independent voices are free to write as they please, but even the best among them can only appear in little read webzines. Many write almost exclusively on their own blogs. Needless to say, they have almost no impact on the general public. In too late late capitalism, those who seek to tell the truth don’t need to be burnt. They are already being drown out by nonsense.

January 31, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

‘Within 24 hours of the assemblyman’s phone call, I was fired’ –Brooklyn College adjunct professor

By Zoe Zenowich | Mondoweiss | January 30, 2011

The controversy over the firing of a Brooklyn College adjunct professor allegedly for his solidarity with the Palestinian cause continues.  The college’s assertion that the teaching appointment of Kristofer Petersen-Overton, a doctoral student entering his fourth semester of studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, was canceled a week before classes start because of his “lack of qualifications” doesn’t add up.

The dispute over Petersen-Overton’s course began after the class syllabus was circulated to prospective students. On January 12, a student worried about Petersen-Overton’s political affiliations emailed the department with the accusation that Petersen-Overton is an “active partisan of Palestinian in Gaza.” Bruce Kesler, who appears to have taken up the hobby of monitoring Brooklyn College’s assigned reading material and now teaching appointments, was quick to follow with a blog post condemning the hiring.

When the department requested that complaints be deferred until after the class had started, and after students could point to actual evidence of Petersen-Overton’s supposed “bias,” the unidentified student—who was interviewed on WPIX New York with her face blurred—contacted Assemblyman Dov Hikind, Hikind is a supporter of illegal settlements in the West Bank and an advocate for the ethnic profiling of Arabs and Muslims.  Hikind also played an influential role in the smear campaign that led to the removal of Debbie Almontaser from her position as the founding principal of Khalil Gibran International Academy, New York City’s first Arab-English dual language school—a decision which the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission later deemed unfair discrimination.

Hikind called CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, and wrote a letter to Brooklyn College President Karen Gould in which he claims that Petersen-Overton’s “personal biases should not be allowed to pollute the academic realm,” citing a paper Petersen-Overton is in the process of completing, Inventing the Martyr: Martyrdom as a Palestinian National Signifier.  In his letter, Hikind takes quotes out of context to back up his assertion that the paper “endeavors to justify and condone Palestinian suicide bombings as means of ‘struggle’ and ‘sacrifice.’”  Hikind either deliberately misconstrues the essay, has not read it, or does not understand it. Like most academic essays, Petersen-Overton’s cites research, not personal opinion, and is about how Palestinian national identity manifests politically— clearly not a “romanticization” of suicide bombers.

In a phone interview, Petersen-Overton recounted that, “within 24 hours of Hikind’s statement, I was fired,” adding that Hisseine Faradj, an adjunct professor who taught the same course before, is also a doctoral student.

Hikind said in a phone interview that he is “thrilled” that Brooklyn College decided to cancel Petersen-Overton’s appointment.  “Matthew Goldstein said to me on Tuesday that he was calling a meeting and they were going to look at everything this guy has ever written,” the assemblyman said. “The reading material on the syllabus “are written by Palestinian historians or Israeli revisionist historians, and basically blame Israel for everything.”

But according to Brooklyn College’s Media Relations Manager, Ernesto Mora, “Mr. Petersen-Overton was not fired because he had not been hired. This was an internal matter and the CUNY Chancellor had nothing to do with the provost’s decision, regardless of what Hikind’s releases argue.” However, Petersen-Overton says that he signed a contract with Brooklyn College on Monday. Mora also claims Hikind’s statements to the New York  Daily News contains factual errors, and that no meeting occurred between the Provost William A. Tra­mon­tano and the Chancellor, adding that Hikind announced the decision that Petersen-Overton’s appointment had been canceled before the college did.

The administration’s and Hikind’s narrative contradict both each other, Petersen-Overton’s own account, other faculty members, and that of Janet Elise Johnston, an Associate Professor in the Political Science department and a member of the Appointments Committee. Johnston says she was not present during the meetings on Petersen-Overton’s position, but claims that “the argument that it’s about qualifications doesn’t stand up to the evidence; we have other adjunct professors who teach for the Masters Program, but don’t have PhDs … he was not officially appointed by he had been asked to teach. He is qualified.” While Johnston cannot comment on the accusations that political motives propelled the decision to dismiss Petersen-Overton from his position, she maintains that “in reality CUNY and Brooklyn College are under funded, and under resourced, and have been so for decades,” which further explains the frequent appointments of doctoral students from CUNY programs.

Currently, opposition to Peterson-Overton’s politically motivated termination is mounting. The Political Science department released a statement denouncing the decision: “His decision [the Provost’s] to reject our appointment undermines academic freedom and departmental governance.”  The watchdog group Foundation for Individual Rights in Education sent a letter to the President Karen Gould calling for the reinstatement of Petersen-Overton as adjunct professor. “As you know, BC is a public institution and thus is both legally and morally bound by the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of expression and Academic freedom, ” the letter reads.

Dr. Barbara Bowen, President of the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY, a union representing CUNY faculty and profession staff, released a statement condemning the decision as a politically motivated violation of academic freedom.  And in an email circulated on a CUNY Hunter list serve, John Wallach, a Professor of Political Science at Hunter College and The CUNY Graduate Center, writes, “All of us who have taught him [Petersen-Overton] at the Graduate Center have written letters to the Provost, yesterday if not today, in addition to signing the petition. Uniformly, we find this action an abominable assault on academic freedom that must be reversed—immediately and without qualification.” The CUNY Graduate Center student newspaper, The Advocate, is also circulating a petition that has already received over 1,300 signatures, in addition to hosting a live blog which follows the case’s developments. Brooklyn College’s Political Science department will also be holding an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the current situation.

Despite the circumstances, Petersen-Overton remains surprisingly level. “To complain about Hikind and others is a waste of time. I am mainly concerned that the college administration caved so easily. I tried to amend my syllabus as recommended, but they never gave me the opportunity.”

Zoe Zenowich is a Senior in the Scholars Program at Brooklyn College, where she is the managing editor of the Excelsior, a student newspaper.

January 30, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

US ambassador’s bid to get Richard Falk sacked from UN opens a can of worms

By Stuart Littlewood | Redress | 30 January 2011

Mention  Richard Falk and you think of an honourable man who cares deeply about injustice, particularly the trampled rights of Palestinians under the evil jackboot.

Mention  Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the United Nations, and what comes to mind?

The BBC reported in December 2008: “During her stint in the Clinton White House, she was described as ‘brilliant’ but also ‘authoritarian’ and ‘brash’. According to the New York Times, she acknowledges ‘a certain impatience at times’.”

She is also said to be “unwilling to consider opinions that differ from her own”.

Fair comment

Ambassador Rice has just demanded that Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur in the Palestinian territories, step down from his UN position. “In my view, Mr Falk’s latest commentary [an entry in his blog about the media and 9/11] is so noxious that it should finally be plain to all that he should no longer continue in his position on behalf of the UN.”

Falk’s crime was saying that the US administration’s reluctance to address the awkward gaps and contradictions identified by several scholars in the official explanations of 9/11, only fuels suspicions of a conspiracy. And he suggested that “what may be more distressing than the apparent cover up is the eerie silence of the mainstream media, unwilling to acknowledge the well-evidenced doubts about the official version of the events: an Al-Qaeda operation with no foreknowledge by government officials”.

Fair comment, you might think. And carefully worded to cause no offence.

Enter the American Jewish Committee

But Reuters reported that UN Watch, an advocacy group affiliated with the American Jewish Committee, had written to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon similarly demanding that he “strongly condemn Mr Falk’s offensive remarks – and … immediately remove him from his post”.

The report added that UN Watch had targeted Falk in the past and frequently criticized the Human Rights Council for berating Israel while ignoring rights violations by developing countries.

The American Jewish Committee also called on the UN to immediately dismiss Falk for publicly endorsing “the slander of conspiracy theorists”. Executive Director David Harris said:

We agree wholeheartedly with the US Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Susan Rice, who stated that Mr Falk’s comments are ‘despicable and offensive’ and, like her, urge the UN to remove him from his position. Falk has long been a conspiracy-ridden and harmful figure who surely does not serve the best interests of the UN.

UN Watch claims to have won “global condemnation” of Falk. Its website trumpets: “After UN Watch exposes noxious remarks, UN official Richard Falk [is] roundly condemned by UN chief, US Gov’t, and media worldwide.”

“Noxious” – that’s Rice’s word. Could they be sharing the same scriptwriter?

UN Watch diligently sets down who said what:

Thursday, 20 January: UN Watch takes action and files complaint with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, demanding he condemn Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s permanent investigator on “Israel’s violations of the principles of international law”, for his latest remarks suggesting that the US government – and not Al-Qaeda terrorists – destroyed the World Trade Centre. The protest came as part of UN Watch’s three-year campaign to expose and combat Falk’s denial and justification of Hamas and Al-Qaeda terrorism, and his material support for 9/11 conspiracy theorists. At the daily UN press briefing, when Matthew Lee of Inner City Press asks for a response, the secretary-general’s spokesman says they don’t comment on independent experts.

Friday, 21 January: The New York Daily News picks up the story and publishes editorial: “When will the lunacy reach such heights that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon realizes his so-called Human Rights Council is wrecking what little reputation the world body has left?… Ignore those jetliners crashing into the towers, is Falk’s advice. Who are you going to believe, your own eyes or him and his friends? Ban should ring down the curtain on this grotesque buffoonery. He should force out Falk forthwith…”

Monday, 24 January: The United Nations sends letter to UN Watch with unprecedented condemnation of a UN Human Rights Council official: “The secretary-general condemns [Falk’s] remarks. He has repeatedly stated his view that any such suggestion is preposterous — and an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in the attack”. UN Watch immediately releases the letter to the public, and calls for the UN to fire Falk.

Tuesday, 25 January: US Ambassador Susan Rice condemns Falk and echoes UN Watch’s call for him to be fired: “Mr Falk’s comments are despicable and deeply offensive, and I condemn them in the strongest terms… The United States is deeply committed to the cause of human rights and believes that cause will be better advanced without Mr Falk and the distasteful sideshow he has chosen to create.” Ambassador Eileen C. Donahoe, the US envoy to the Human Rights Council, also speaks out.

On the same day, in a Geneva address to the member and observer states of the Human Rights Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon repeats his condemnation of Falk: “Recently, there was a special rapporteur who suggested there was an ‘apparent cover-up’ in the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. I want to tell you, clearly and directly. I condemn this sort of inflammatory rhetoric. It is preposterous – an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in that tragic terrorist attack.”

SUCCESS: UN Watch’s campaign led to the unprecedented international condemnation of Richard Falk, who exploits his UN position to justify and deny Hamas and Al-Qaeda terrorism. It sparked dozens of news stories worldwide, as shown in the sample below. All of this succeeded in finally puncturing Falk’s undeserved halo as a “human rights expert”. For the first time ever, the UN itself had condemned Falk, and in the strongest terms. As a result, Falk’s credibility in the international arena is now at zero.

What’s remarkable is how twitchy these people get at the slightest possibility that someone will lift the lid on 9/11, their hysterical protests serving only to deepen already serious suspicions.

Incidentally UN Watch’s founder, chairman and executive director are all Jewish, the latter having worked at Israel’s Supreme Court.

Ambassador Susan Rice “handmaiden to the Zionist cause”

Let’s go back to 14 July last year and remarks made by Ambassador Rice during a reception for Israeli ambassadors Gabriela Shalev and Daniel Carmon held by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Rice said:

Today, I mostly want to talk about my very dear friend, Ambassador Gabriela Shalev. She’s truly one of my favorite people…

Gabi and I had the opportunity to work closely together on a series of important issues, from dealing with the deeply flawed Goldstone Report to seeing through the passage by the Security Council of the toughest sanctions resolution to date against Iran. She has been a lioness in defence of Israel’s security and its legitimacy — working tirelessly to ensure that Israel has the same rights and enjoys the same responsibilities as any other UN member state.

We will continue to work together to seek a lasting and comprehensive peace that meets Israel’s security needs and creates a viable, sovereign Palestinian state. We will continue to strengthen Israel’s qualitative military advantage so that Israel can always defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats. And, as the president pledged, we will continue US efforts to combat all international attempts to challenge the legitimacy of Israel — including and especially at the United Nations.

Having revealed herself as another handmaiden to the Zionist cause, Rice’s attack on Falk for breaking the ridiculous taboo and questioning the US administration’s refusal to hold a proper independent inquiry into 9/11 only raises questions about her own suitability for an important position at the UN.

Meanwhile, there are millions of us out here who are right behind Richard Falk because he stands for justice. We are not amused by growing indications that the official story of 9/11 doesn’t add up. Nor are we too pleased by the realization that it was used to prod our own governments into sacrificing troops and treasure to a couple of unlawful, unwinnable wars that have caused mega-deaths and endless suffering to innocent civilians, trashed our good name abroad and made us vulnerable to reprisals at home – just to advance the crazed ambitions of the US-Israeli axis.

In short, if there’s the slightest doubt we want to know the truth.

January 29, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Another Professor Fired for Views on Middle East

An Interview with Kristofer Petersen-Overton

By JOSHUA SPERBER | January 28, 2011

Brooklyn College fired PhD student Kristofer Petersen-Overton yesterday, one day after New York state assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) sent a letter to BC president Karen Gould accusing Petersen-Overton of being an “overt supporter of terrorism.” Hikind has complained in interviews that Petersen-Overton’s academic work is anti-Israel, and that his attempt to “understand” suicide bombing is unfathomable. Petersen-Overton and I are colleagues at the CUNY Graduate Center.

JS: You were preparing to instruct a course on the Middle East and were fired. What happened?

KPO: I was hired by Mark Ungar at Brooklyn College’s political science department on the recommendation of Dov Waxman at the Graduate Center. I went in for an interview, and he was impressed with my credentials. I have an MA and I’ve published on the situation [in the Middle East], and he said “I would be honored to have you.” And this was for a grad level seminar, which is not lecture-based, meaning that our classes would be discussion-oriented and not some sort of alleged platform.

JS: What was the official explanation for your firing, and why doesn’t it make sense?

KPO: I have not once been contacted by the department itself, but I was told that the official reason I have been fired is that I don’t have a PhD, which is untrue, because no student teaching this course has a PhD, and there are of course many student teachers at BC who do not have their PhD’s. And I’ll point out that I am somewhat more qualified than many student teachers because I came into the program with a Master’s degree, which many students who are teaching for CUNY don’t have.

I was fired immediately after Dov Hikind contacted the school. He is an especially radical assemblyman who goes after people who he perceives as being anti-Israel. He’s actually made a career out of targeting people for alleged anti-Israel bias.

JS: And the charge of bias is doubly problematic. Because, one, it’s inaccurate. But, two, even if it were accurate, what does it imply?

KPO: We all come to the table with our personal political views; there’s not a single professor who doesn’t have their own views. So it all comes down to how one approaches those views, and I devoted an entire class in the syllabus to the subject of objectivity and humanism, meaning I wanted to put this issue of bias on the table to facilitate open and productive discussions.

JS: What does your firing suggest about contemporary politics and higher education?

KPO: They’ve targeted professors up for tenure for so long and have been relatively unsuccessful except for several cases, like with Norman Finkelstein (JS: and, among others, Nicholas De Genova and Thaddeus Russell, at Columbia University and Barnard College, respectively), now I think they’re going after graduate students before their careers even begin. One of the most direct implications of this which is deeply troubling is not the fact that people take issue with one particular class, which is inevitable, but the way in which the college administration caved so quickly – for it to occur within 24 hours is incredible to me, and the school never even consulted me. For this to be decided by a state official poking his nose in a college syllabus is Orwellian. I’ve received tremendous support, which I’m very grateful for. Norman Finkelstein wrote me, and after I contacted Neve Gordon he (Gordon) contacted BC’s provost, writing that he reviewed my syllabus and that it was excellent and reflected a number of different perspectives, noting that the textbook was mainstream and “emphasizes the Zionist narrative.” He also read a scholarly paper I had written, and wrote that he was “struck by (my) academic rigor.”

JS: What can people do to lend support?

I would be greatly appreciative if people can send an email to the provost, even better a letter, and tomorrow it would be great if people could call, and more importantly if people could disseminate this story. It’s especially disgusting that they would go after a grad student, because they have not only impacted my career but also my income and health insurance.

Office of the Provost (William A. Tramontano)
Brooklyn College
2900 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11210
718.951.5000
tramontano@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Kristofer Petersen-Overton can be reached at kpetersen-overton@GC.CUNY.EDU. His website is http://www.petersen-overton.com/_/home.html

Joshua Sperber can be reached at jsperber4@yahoo.com

Source

January 29, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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