Monday, September 27, 2010

Raiding Americans to Protect Israel

One of the reasons for my post below, though I had insufficient links/information at the time to say much, was the raid on the Chicago and Minneapolis peace and solidarity activists that was just a fishing expedition for information about alleged ties to foreign terrorist organizations, including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Attorneys linked the raids to the Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project decision saying even the most nonviolent protester could be prosecuted if they had any truck with alleged terrorists. See this and this article.

As usual Justin Raimondo is very insightful, including amusing histories of the Obama-supporting lefty groups under attack. In "The Obama Boomerang" he writes in part:
Since the PATRIOT Act and subsequent legislation gave the feds a blank check to spy on us, law enforcement agencies have taken the opportunity to cast as wide a net as possible over the legal activities of American citizens whose only goal is to change American foreign policy. Under Bush, and now under Obama, the government is engaged in a systematic campaign to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat the anti-interventionist movement on the home front, all under the rubric of “anti-terrorism.”

Raiding domestic groups who may have had some minor connection to groups the U.S. government - and the powerful interest groups that support it - deem terrorist is just practice for eventually raiding domestic groups that may have even the most innocent association with people who shoot their mouths off about doing violence someday, or break a window or two today. A fact Tea Party members, with all their gun loving friends, should worry about under Obama.

Meanwhile practicing on all the individuals and groups who support ending the blockade of Gaza, ending Israel's murderous military attacks on Muslims and Arabs, ending the U.S. government's middle east wars to protect Israel, including the coming war on Iran, is just peachy keen with Obama, the U.S. Congress and the Supreme Court. Well, at least the latter doesn't have any of those crazy Apocalyptic Protestants on it. (Or any Protestants at all for that matter.)

Below is an incredible assemblage of cartoons criticizing Obama and Israel for its policies against the Palestinians. I'm sure one of these days they'll haul me away just for embedding it here, after all it's got all sorts of images sympathetic to people deemed terrorists by the U.S. government.




Update: George Washington said it best in 1796 in his FAREWELL ADDRESS

....a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation....

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.

But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

There goes the sun...

Below is the music video of my song HERE COMES THE SOLSTICE SUN. The solstices being the longest and the shortest days of the year.

Of course, we are on the verge of an equinox, those two days of the year when the day light and night time hours are both exactly 12 hours. After a spring and summer hot enough to convince you global warming is here, it's good to feel the cool and see the sun go down early. Of course I'll be crying into my hot cocoa if we have another winter of repeated massive snow falls like last winters'. Geez, I haven't even put together my video of that yet. (Mostly of the dog jumping in and out of snow drifts chasing her ball or playing queen of the snow mountain.)

I used to get depressed after Christmas thinking how much longer winter would last. Until I was around 22 - forty years ago, gee willikers --and learned about the solstices and that the days actually started getting longer after the winter solstice. And I discovered the then still scandalous knowlege that in fact that's what all the celebration was about in the first place!


Equinoxes don't seem like something to get quite as excited about. But the truth is that many cultures celebrate both, as well as the midpoints between them. (That's what Halloween is.) I'm all for creative rituals and celebrations around such natural events - as opposed to the politicized patriarchal celebrations based on stories and myths whose purpose is to create and maintain male privilege, dominance and supremacy, while keeping the captive females subservient. Yup, burning - or stoning - witches who celebrate those natural turning points has long been a patriarchal vice. And still ongoing in some religiously backward nations worldwide. Sigh...

Thursday, September 09, 2010

They all died for lies...

As we enter the anniversary of the September 11th attacks we see incredible trumped up hatred being directed against all Muslims for the acts of a few fanatics who were pissed off about the U.S. lies about Israel's right to stolen land, the U.S.'s need for troops in Saudi Arabia, and the legitimacy of the various middle east tyrants the U.S. supports. (And of course the ranks of these fanatics have only grown because of the over-reaction of the United States government to the attacks, as well as its support for Israel's continued brutal attacks that killed thousands of Muslim and Christian Arab Palestinians in 2002, 2006 and 2008-2009.)

Today the media relishes giving publicity to the propaganda attacks on the mosque and community center being built two blocks from "ground zero." And it keeps featuring and covering the antics of a ridiculous publicity-seeking fundamentalist minister and his plan to burn a Koran on September 11th. The hatred against Muslims, and much of the media coverage, is instigated by Israel supporters who want to keep all that stolen Arab land, Republicans who would rather get elected on bigotry against Muslims and Latino immigrants than promises to cut back out of control government, neoconservatives who want to rule America and the world and make us all their stupid dupes, and fundamentalists eager to have Jesus come back and kill everyone who doesn't convert to their version of Christianity. They all need Americans to hate Muslims to justify their own evil agendas. People who hate are more easily manipulated than those who do not.

What more needs to be said? Here's the lyrics to one song, yet unproduced, about the misuse of the September 11th attacks, followed by my produced music video I DIED FOR A LIE. It is dedicated to the American soldiers killed in Afghanistan for the lie that the Taliban wouldn't cooperate in catching Bin Laden and in Iraq for the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and a means to get them to the United States.

"They Said I love You" - song lyrics

It was on a bright September day

When any kind of harm seemed far away
When suddenly came horror from the sky
With little time to think or wonder why
Three thousand souls were taken.

But those who truly knew the end was near,
And called outside to those they held so dear,
Did they speak of hatred and revenge
And did they say America avenge,
No, they said I love you.

But love was just the last thing on the minds
of those who saw an opportunity to find,
A way to kill and loot and sack,
To scream of evil and attack,
And show they’re above you.

And then they carried out their wicked plans,
With weapons that are cruelest among mans,
Two countries lay in ruins, and still they try
To spread their dirty wars with dirty lies
And they think they’ve fooled you.

But those whose deaths were the excuse,
For all the murder and abuse
Did they speak of hatred and revenge
And did they say America avenge,
No, they said I love you.
No, they said I love you.
No, they said I love you.
(C) Carol Moore 2002; 2010

"I Died for a Lie" - music video