Gay Old Party

OUR LEADERS IN CONGRESS

Illustration: Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, Democratic Leaders, the party elected to get us out of Iraq.

“Pity the Nation,” after Khalil Gibran.

Pity the nation whose people are sheep,

and whose shepherds mislead them.

Pity the nation whose leaders are liars,

whose sages are silenced,and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice,

except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero

and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.

Pity the nation that knows no other language

but its own and no other culture but its own.

Pity the nation whose breath is money

and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.

Pity the nation -- oh, pity the people who allow their

rights to erode and their freedoms to be washed away.

My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.

-- Lawerence Ferlinghetti

The Decider and the Gay Old Party (GOP)

Of course, “Gay” means “Grand,” as in elephant. A grand elephant. A white grand elephant. It is gallomphing along. It is the party of Abraham Lincoln and Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon and Gordon Liddy. Yes, there is much to be gay about.

Larry Craig resigned, the one who attacked Bill Clinton over a blowjob, left with the words “I am not gay.” Carl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, and now Tony Snow have left, but none of them denied being gay. They remain loyal to the last drop.

The Decider showed up in Iraq and shook a lot of hands.

On the same day, Amy Goodman aired an hour long show with Lawence Ferlinghetti of A Coney Island of the Mind. He read a new poem of his and I posted it above. If I’m violating any rights, Larry, let me know and I’ll delete it. I promise.

Another show I heard was on Sacco and Vanzetti – amazing at how deeply Harvard, home of Alan Dershowitz and Henry Kissinger, was involved in that one.

Could that be why Nixon preferred graduates of Indiana?

On the Road was published 50 years ago.

Things look better for me. See, I grew up when we were constantly being warned of a thermonuclear war. It was a good time, knowing that at any time, within 20 minutes, we would all die. I wanted to be there to catch the first bomb as it dropped. I had played centerfield before during times that I beaned too many batters who made a cross as they stepped into the batter’s box (hey, I had enough trouble with the umpires, didn’t need to pitch against God) and that would have been the catch of my life. I once used media reports of the power of the bombs, added them all up together, and calculated that if we set them all off in the same place we could knock the earth off it’s orbit into the sun.

Things sure were depressing when it seemed even the politicians figured it was a bad idea to have such a war and instead played with little ones like Viet Nam, Grenada, and Iraq.

But now, the ecosystem to the rescue! We know that the delicate balance of nature is so fragile that our idiots have not figured it out and any day now they entire things could collapse. I’d rather catch an H-Bomb, but at least I can watch the earth fall apart a little bit at a time, increasing in speed, CNN losing connections once after the other, and then finally total collapse.

Don’t worry, I plan to file an appeal right after that happens.

Some articles that have been waiting:

*ZNet | Israel/Palestine*

*An important marker has been passed*

*by John Pilger; New Statesman

; September 02, 2007*

Those calling for a boycott of Israel were once distant voices.

Now the discussion has gone global. It is growing inexorably and

will not be silenced.

From a limestone hill rising above Qalandia refugee camp you can

see Jerusalem. I watched a lone figure standing there in the

rain, his son holding the tail of his long tattered coat. He

extended his hand and did not let go. "I am Ahmed Hamzeh, street

entertainer," he said in measured English. "Over there, I played

many musical instruments; I sang in Arabic, English and Hebrew,

and because I was rather poor, my very small son would chew gum

while the monkey did its tricks. When we lost our country, we

lost respect. One day a rich Kuwaiti stopped his car in front of

us. He shouted at my son, "Show me how a Palestinian picks up

his food rations!" So I made the monkey appear to scavenge on

the ground, in the gutter. And my son scavenged with him. The

Kuwaiti threw coins and my son crawled on his knees to pick them

up. This was not right; I was an artist, not a beggar . . . I am

not even a peasant now."

"How do you feel about all that?" I asked him.

"Do you expect me to feel hatred? What is that to a Palestinian?

I never hated the Jews and their Israel . . . yes, I suppose I

hate them now, or maybe I pity them for their stupidity. They

can't win. Because we Palestinians are the Jews now and, like

the Jews, we will never allow them or the Arabs or you to

forget. The youth will guarantee us that, and the youth after

them . . .".

That was 40 years ago. On my last trip back to the West Bank, I

recognised little of Qalandia, now announced by a vast Israeli

checkpoint, a zigzag of sandbags, oil drums and breeze blocks,

with conga lines of people, waiting, swatting flies with

precious papers. Inside the camp, the tents had been replaced by

sturdy hovels, although the queues at single taps were as long,

I was assured, and the dust still ran to caramel in the rain. At

the United Nations office I asked about Ahmed Hamzeh, the street

entertainer. Records were consulted, heads shaken. Someone

thought he had been "taken away . . . very ill". No one knew

about his son, whose trachoma was surely blindness now. Outside,

another generation kicked a punctured football in the dust.

And yet, what Nelson Mandela has called "the greatest moral

issue of the age" refuses to be buried in the dust. For every

BBC voice that strains to equate occupier with occupied, thief

with victim, for every swarm of emails from the fanatics of Zion

to those who invert the lies and describe the Israeli state's

commitment to the destruction of Palestine, the truth is more

powerful now than ever. Documentation of the violent expulsion

of Palestinians in 1948 is voluminous. Re-examination of the

historical record has put paid to the fable of heroic David in

the Six Day War, when Ahmed Hamzeh and his family were driven

from their home. The alleged threat of Arab leaders to "throw

the Jews into the sea", used to justify the 1967 Israeli

onslaught and since repeated relentlessly, is highly

questionable. In 2005, the spectacle of wailing Old Testament

zealots leaving Gaza was a fraud. The building of their

"settlements" has accelerated on the West Bank, along with the

illegal Berli! n-style wall dividing farmers from their crops,

children from their schools, families from each other. We now

know that Israel's destruction of much of Lebanon last year was

pre-planned. As the former CIA analyst Kathleen Christison has

written, the recent "civil war" in Gaza was actually a coup

against the elected Hamas-led government, engineered by Elliott

Abrams, the Zionist who runs US policy on Israel and a convicted

felon from the Iran-Contra era.

The ethnic cleansing of Palestine is as much America's crusade

as Israel's. On 16 August, the Bush administration announced an

unprecedented $30bn military "aid package" for Israel, the

world's fourth biggest military power, an air power greater than

Britain, a nuclear power greater than France. No other country

on earth enjoys such immunity, allowing it to act without

sanction, as Israel. No other country has such a record of

lawlessness: not one of the world's tyrannies comes close.

International treaties, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation

Treaty, ratified by Iran, are ignored by Israel. There is

nothing like it in UN history.

But something is changing. Perhaps last summer's panoramic

horror beamed from Lebanon on to the world's TV screens provided

the catalyst. Or perhaps cynicism of Bush and Blair and the

incessant use of the inanity, "terror", together with the

day-by-day dissemination of a fabricated insecurity in all our

lives, has finally brought the attention of the international

community outside the rogue states, Britain and the US, back to

one of its principal sources, Israel.

I got a sense of this recently in the United States. A full-page

advertisement in the New York Times had the distinct odour of

panic. There have been many "friends of Israel" advertisements

in the Times, demanding the usual favours, rationalising the

usual outrages. This one was different. "Boycott a cure for

cancer?" was its main headline, followed by "Stop drip

irrigation in Africa? Prevent scientific co-operation between

nations?" Who would want to do such things? "Some British

academics want to boycott Israelis," was the self-serving

answer. It referred to the University and College Union's (UCU)

inaugural conference motion in May, calling for discussion

within its branches for a boycott of Israeli academic

institutions. As John Chalcraft of the London School of

Economics pointed out, "the Israeli academy has long provided

intellectual, linguistic, logistical, technical, scientific and

human support for an occupation in direct violation of

international law [against whic! h] no Israeli academic

institution has ever taken a public stand".

The swell of a boycott is growing inexorably, as if an important

marker has been passed, reminiscent of the boycotts that led to

sanctions against apartheid South Africa. Both Mandela and

Desmond Tutu have drawn this parallel; so has South African

cabinet minister Ronnie Kasrils and other illustrious Jewish

members of the liberation struggle. In Britain, an often

Jewish-led academic campaign against Israel's "methodical

destruction of [the Palestinian] education system" can be

translated by those of us who have reported from the occupied

territories into the arbitrary closure of Palestinian

universities, the harassment and humiliation of students at

checkpoints and the shooting and killing of Palestinian children

on their way to school.

British initiatives

These initiatives have been backed by a British group,

Independent Jewish Voices, whose 528 signatories include Stephen

Fry, Harold Pinter, Mike Leigh and Eric Hobsbawm. The country's

biggest union, Unison, has called for an "economic, cultural,

academic and sporting boycott" and the right of return for

Palestinian families expelled in 1948. Remarkably, the Commons'

international development committee has made a similar stand. In

April, the membership of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ)

voted for a boycott only to see it hastily overturned by the

national executive council. In the Republic of Ireland, the

Irish Congress of Trade Unions has called for divestment from

Israeli companies: a campaign aimed at the European Union, which

accounts for two-thirds of Israel's exports under an EU-Israel

Association Agreement. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to

Food, Jean Ziegler, has said that human rights conditions in the

agreement should be invoked and Israel's trading ! preferences

suspended.

This is unusual, for these were once distant voices. And that

such grave discussion of a boycott has "gone global" was

unforeseen in official Israel, long comforted by its seemingly

untouchable myths and great power sponsorship, and confident

that the mere threat of anti-Semitism would ensure silence. When

the British lecturers' decision was announced, the US Congress

passed an absurd resolution describing the UCU as

"anti-Semitic". (Eighty congressmen have gone on junkets to

Israel this summer.)

This intimidation has worked in the past. The smearing of

American academics has denied them promotion, even tenure. The

late Edward Said kept an emergency button in his New York

apartment connected to the local police station; his offices at

Columbia University were once burned down. Following my 2002

film, Palestine is Still the Issue, I received death threats and

slanderous abuse, most of it coming from the US where the film

was never shown. When the BBC's Independent Panel recently

examined the corporation's coverage of the Middle East, it was

inundated with emails, "many from abroad, mostly from North

America", said its report. Some individuals "sent multiple

missives, some were duplicates and there was clear evidence of

pressure group mobilisation". The panel's conclusion was that

BBC reporting of the Palestinian struggle was not "full and

fair" and "in important respects, presents an incomplete and in

that sense misleading picture". This was neutralised in BBC

press r! eleases.

The courageous Israeli historian, Ilan Pappé, believes a single

democratic state, to which the Palestinian refugees are given

the right of return, is the only feasible and just solution, and

that a sanctions and boycott campaign is critical in achieving

this. Would the Israeli population be moved by a worldwide

boycott? Although they would rarely admit it, South Africa's

whites were moved enough to support an historic change. A

boycott of Israeli institutions, goods and services, says Pappé,

"will not change the [Israeli] position in a day, but it will

send a clear message that [the premises of Zionism] are racist

and unacceptable in the 21st century . . . They would have to

choose."

And so would the rest of us.

*ZNet | Labor*

*Labor Day Hypocrisy*

*by Stephen Lendman; September 01, 2007*

Labor Day is commemorated on the first Monday in September each

year since the first one was celebrated in New York in 1882.

Around the world outside the US, socialist and labor movements

are observed on May 1 to recognize organized labor's social and

economic achievements and the workers in them. This day gets

scant attention in the US, but where it's prominent it's

commonly to remember the Haymarket Riot of May 4, 1886 in

Chicago. It followed the city's May 1 general strike for an

eight hour day that led to violence breaking out on the 4th.

Labor Day became a national federal holiday when Congress passed

legislation for it in June, 1894 at a time working people had

few rights, management had the upper hand, only wanted to

exploit them for profit, and got away with it. It took many

painful years of organizing, taking to the streets, going on

strike, holding boycotts, battling police and National Guard

forces, and paying with their blood and lives before real gains

were won. They got an eight hour day, a living wage, on-the-job

benefits and the pinnacle of labor's triumph in the 1930s with

the passage of the landmark Wagner Act establishing the National

Labor Relations Board (NLRB). It guaranteed labor the right to

bargain collectively on equal terms with management for the

first time ever.

All of it was won from the grassroots. Management gave nothing

until forced to and neither did government. It always sides with

business never yields a thing unless threatened with disruptive

work stoppages or possible insurrection. All this is in a

democracy that claims to be a government of the people, by the

people and for the people, most of whom are ordinary working

class ones.

Since a worried Congress passed the 1935 Wagner Act during The

Great Depression, the state of organized labor declined,

especially post-WW II. It accelerated precipitously during the

Reagan years under an administration openly hostile to worker

rights in its one-side support for management. It continued

unabated, under Republican and Democrat administrations, and

today stands at a multi-generational low.

Under George Bush conditions got much worse. Since coming into

office in 2001, he sided with management openly on policies to

strip workers of their right to organize and be able to bargain

for a living wage and essential benefits. He hired anti-union

officials, denied millions overtime pay, cut pay raises for 1.8

million federal workers claiming a "national emergency," and

schemed to end Social Security as we know it by plotting

(unsuccessfully so far) to let Wall Street sharks take it over.

Since labor's ascendency decades earlier, corporate America, in

league with government, shamelessly denigrated unions and the

rights of working people in them. In 1958, 34.7% of the work

force was unionized, but now the figure is around 12% overall,

and only 7.4% in the private sector - the lowest it's been in

seven decades.

Even worse, most jobs are low-pay service sector ones because

the nation's manufacturing base and many higher-paying positions

in finance and technology have been offshored to low-wage

developing nations. Workers there can be hired for a fraction of

the pay scales here or as virtual serfs at below poverty wages

as low as $2 a day or less and no benefits. They fill legions of

sweatshop factory jobs in countries prohibiting unions and fair

worker practice standards for Wal-Mart's "Always low prices" on

the backs of ruthlessly exploited working people.

Nonetheless, on the first Monday each September, this nation

"remembers" working Americans with a federally-mandated holiday

in their "honor." Who's celebrating when it's disingenuously

commemorated at a time worker rights are threatened, ignored,

forgotten, and uncared about by heartless governments beholden

to capital. They scorn working people who are no longer as

deceived with meaningless bread and circus droppings at the

expense of what they need most: good jobs at good pay, essential

benefits, job security, and a government on their side doing

what counts most - supporting their rights with worker-friendly

legislation.

Workers are reminded every day that backing like that is off the

table by governments shamelessly mocking their day. It's

commemorated in name only by a nation beholden to capital, the

corporate giants controlling it, and the best democracy their

money can buy for them alone.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at

lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to

The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on

TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

*ZNet | Labor*

*Labor Day Hypocrisy*

*by Stephen Lendman; September 01, 2007*

Labor Day is commemorated on the first Monday in September each

year since the first one was celebrated in New York in 1882.

Around the world outside the US, socialist and labor movements

are observed on May 1 to recognize organized labor's social and

economic achievements and the workers in them. This day gets

scant attention in the US, but where it's prominent it's

commonly to remember the Haymarket Riot of May 4, 1886 in

Chicago. It followed the city's May 1 general strike for an

eight hour day that led to violence breaking out on the 4th.

Labor Day became a national federal holiday when Congress passed

legislation for it in June, 1894 at a time working people had

few rights, management had the upper hand, only wanted to

exploit them for profit, and got away with it. It took many

painful years of organizing, taking to the streets, going on

strike, holding boycotts, battling police and National Guard

forces, and paying with their blood and lives before real gains

were won. They got an eight hour day, a living wage, on-the-job

benefits and the pinnacle of labor's triumph in the 1930s with

the passage of the landmark Wagner Act establishing the National

Labor Relations Board (NLRB). It guaranteed labor the right to

bargain collectively on equal terms with management for the

first time ever.

All of it was won from the grassroots. Management gave nothing

until forced to and neither did government. It always sides with

business never yields a thing unless threatened with disruptive

work stoppages or possible insurrection. All this is in a

democracy that claims to be a government of the people, by the

people and for the people, most of whom are ordinary working

class ones.

Since a worried Congress passed the 1935 Wagner Act during The

Great Depression, the state of organized labor declined,

especially post-WW II. It accelerated precipitously during the

Reagan years under an administration openly hostile to worker

rights in its one-side support for management. It continued

unabated, under Republican and Democrat administrations, and

today stands at a multi-generational low.

Under George Bush conditions got much worse. Since coming into

office in 2001, he sided with management openly on policies to

strip workers of their right to organize and be able to bargain

for a living wage and essential benefits. He hired anti-union

officials, denied millions overtime pay, cut pay raises for 1.8

million federal workers claiming a "national emergency," and

schemed to end Social Security as we know it by plotting

(unsuccessfully so far) to let Wall Street sharks take it over.

Since labor's ascendency decades earlier, corporate America, in

league with government, shamelessly denigrated unions and the

rights of working people in them. In 1958, 34.7% of the work

force was unionized, but now the figure is around 12% overall,

and only 7.4% in the private sector - the lowest it's been in

seven decades.

Even worse, most jobs are low-pay service sector ones because

the nation's manufacturing base and many higher-paying positions

in finance and technology have been offshored to low-wage

developing nations. Workers there can be hired for a fraction of

the pay scales here or as virtual serfs at below poverty wages

as low as $2 a day or less and no benefits. They fill legions of

sweatshop factory jobs in countries prohibiting unions and fair

worker practice standards for Wal-Mart's "Always low prices" on

the backs of ruthlessly exploited working people.

Nonetheless, on the first Monday each September, this nation

"remembers" working Americans with a federally-mandated holiday

in their "honor." Who's celebrating when it's disingenuously

commemorated at a time worker rights are threatened, ignored,

forgotten, and uncared about by heartless governments beholden

to capital. They scorn working people who are no longer as

deceived with meaningless bread and circus droppings at the

expense of what they need most: good jobs at good pay, essential

benefits, job security, and a government on their side doing

what counts most - supporting their rights with worker-friendly

legislation.

Workers are reminded every day that backing like that is off the

table by governments shamelessly mocking their day. It's

commemorated in name only by a nation beholden to capital, the

corporate giants controlling it, and the best democracy their

money can buy for them alone.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at

lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to

The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on

TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.