Showing posts with label DRUGS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DRUGS. Show all posts

Monday, January 13, 2020

PREPOSTEROUS


THE ABSURD TIMES




Latuff: Iraqi votes unanimously for U.S. to leave



Preposterous
We are told that we made the world, and certainly the U.S. safer by assassinating Ghassem Suleimani. It is not widely known that, at the same time, Trump also tried to kill another Iranian leader, this time in Yemen. We do know, but don’t really seem to care, that we killed a major Iraqi figure who was with Sulemani at the same time, only he was an Iraqi. Also not much attention is being paid to the fact that the Iraqi Parliament unanimously voted to kick the Americans out. We also denied the Foreign Minister, or perhaps the President, of Iran a visa to address the United Nations. (Well, what use is the United Nations except to bring revenue to New York?) Also, the “Green Zone” in Baghdad was torn up and a commercial airliner shot down.

That is just a quick summary of the first or second week of the New Year under Trump. Just recently, Pompeo elaborated a bit. He said that several embassies were under “imminent” attack. He would not define the word, but came up with another word that I would really like to hear defined. He said that Iran had to act like a “normal” country. That was a good time to spit out the coffee or something like that in reaction. Now, what does a “normal” country act like?” Well, obviously like the United States since Trump got elected? Now come on, you don’t really mean that, now, do you? I mean, I know this guy grew up in Kansas and all, but that is no excuse for this sort of double-talk. Or maybe it is. Yeah, Iran should act more normal, right.

Now, other information suggests that Suleimani was actually delivering a response from the “Supreme Leader” (no, not Trump) through Iraq in response to one from Saudi Arabia. Now this would be an imminent danger, no doubt, given our foreign policy, but that is not clear. It is clear that Iran does not have much confidence in the U.S. as it did react to the place sited on radar and thought it might be an incoming missle and therefore shot it down. Idiots tell me that it is easy to tell the difference between a commercial airliner and an incoming missle, but with such a short distance and having only 10 seconds to react, it is unlikely that one would take any chances.

One thing that has actually confused me during this entire process is that so-called “rational” people in the discussion have to preface any discussion of how stupid the assassination was have to preface their arguments by saying all sorts of negative things about him, things like “Now he was a bad man, but...” and “He does have American blood on his hands, but...”, before explaining how stupid this whole process was. Now, if he did have good ol’ apple pie blood on his hands and kill Americans, where did he do that? I haven’t heard any reports from Pittsburgh or San Jose, not even Delaware. Just where did he do all this bloody stuff to Americans? Or are we upset with the fact that he attacked ISIS as they were ours to attack? Even so, how did he get our blood on his hands? I realize that Iran has our oil, as is the case also in Iraq and Syria, hidden under their ground, but that really isn’t blood, now, is it?

Oh, and next week the Impeachment Trial should start. It is fixed. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this all is the desire to have John Bolton testify. Now, those who want him to testify may not really understand what they are dealing with. He should be limited to Ukraine in his testimony, but how would you stop him once he got going. Now trump is more or less a sociopath and can therefore be trusted to do whatever he thinks will benefit him. Bolton leans more towards being a Psychopath and, even worse, or more dangerously, is intelligent, has a fairly good memory and failing that is a compulsive note taker. He has never met a war he didn’t like (as long as he didn’t have to get shot at personally) and everything will proceed on this premise: War is good. Bomb other countries, and so on. Bomb Congress if you have to in order to bomb other countries. Any idea that interferes with his main premise need to be destroyed. So, both Democrats and “republicans” had best figure out a strategy to deal with him before he is sworn in. (No, I’m not even going to go into the idiocy of watching Senators swear to be unbiased and fair – if you believe that they will, nothing said here will mean anything to you.)

We have a few related things to discuss. When I first mentioned elsewhere that Iran indeed had shot down its own commercial airplane, many rose up to scream, idiotically, that an airliner looks much different than does a missle. Well, no, not on a radar screen right after launching several missles at the enemy and suspecting a reprisal attack and having 10 seconds to decide.

What one needs to do in these situations where you have no other information is to put yoourself in the mind of the person responsible. Now, suppose you are in the airport tower where you give takeoff approval in such situations. Imagine also that you are aware of the attacks just recently and the pilot said “asks permission to take off”. I think I would have said something to the effect of “No way, man, no way, not now”. Who would think it was a good idea to fly a commercial aircraft in such tense times?

Also, the Iraqi parliament voted unanimously to kick the U.S. out.

Finally, the commander in chief, though he claims not to take drugs or drink, seems very much under the influence of some sorts of narcotics, prescribed or otherwise. The slurring of speech, the transposition of consonants within sentences, and the varying justifications of the same incident within hours all seem very unlike his past behavior (of several months ago). While the drugs may have been prescribed, he is easily capable of self-medcating. They are, one could argue, mind-altering substances (and few would argue against that), one would imagine that if there is one mind that needed altering, it was his. At any rate, he is mentally sinking.


Sunday, July 29, 2018

Trump Drugs?

THE ABSURD TIMES




Here is Trump and Putin.  Trump has offered or agreed to send twelve people to Moscow to be interrogated by Putin's "investigators".

Now here is where I need some help with a problem that has come up recently and that I simply can not understand.

I've noticed a great deal of speculation about Trump being on some sort of drugs, with a form of ecstasy being the most popular choice.  I have absolutely no first hand knowledge of this, or even word from someone who would know. 

I mentioned that he neither drank nor smoked cigarettes.  That was countered by someone who mentioned that neither did Hitler, and Adolph did take drugs (some sort of amphetamine).  That is true.  However, Hitler does not count in this sort of situation -- whenever someone mentions Hitler I immediately am reminded of the maxim that whoever mentions Hitler first has lost the argument.

I said that perhaps his doctor would be required to mention it, but then all he did was talk about his genes.  The doctor had to resign as I understand it.

If you look at the photo above, you can see the difference between attitude of the two people and Donald does not look very good.  Do you think that perhaps he takes some sort of mild sedative to balance that drug which, after all, is both a hallucinogen and a form of speed?  I don't know.

I'm simply aware that there has been a great deal of speculation about this and wonder what has happened.  I also notice that the Vice President, Mike Pence, recently said that we do not need healthcare.  We need Jesus.  All of this is too much for me.  I really don't understand what is going on. 

Anybody out there know?



Sunday, January 17, 2016

Syria, Drugs, Hillary's Daughter, AJAM, Terroris


The Absurd Times





Illustration:  So much for all the B.S. In the Republican Debates


Syria, Drugs, Hillary's Daughter, AJAM, Terrorism
by
Editor


We have not been able to post recently as we had suffered a terrorist attact by the joint forces of Toshiba and Microsoft. Much of our original data is still not accessible, but we are working on it. Note: if you don't need to upgrade to 10, don't.

Now some idiot liberals, with concern for your health, are campaigning against the heroin overdose epidemic. How would they do it? By actually spending some money on treatment or education? No. See, the idea is that prescription painkillers lead to heroin addiction and many heroin users first used prescription painkillers. The fact that this is also true of milk and bananas makes no difference. If people start enjoying milk and bananas, we will need to clamp down on them as well. The same was once said of pot, but now voters are rebelling against that and changing laws. Enough. Work towards universal health care or cure cancer – that would be a worthy goal, but perhaps too hard for them?

We have mentioned, and posted, how six corporations control almost all the media in the United States. There was, for a short time, one mass exception – Al Jazerra. Well, that will be shut down in a couple of months.

Sad to say, yes, Ted Cruz is an American natural born citizen. Donald Trump as well. That does not mean they are worth listening to. We missed the debate as the slimy moderator is offensive and others things were more interesting.

Two of the notable exceptions to the corporate control of our media are the Nation magazine and Democracy Now. Here they are joined together to discuss the situation and the impending election:

TRANSCRIPT





This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Katrina, in that you mentioned Bernie Sanders, The Nation, for the—only the third time in its history, has endorsed a candidate in a primary, Democratic primary, endorsed Bernie Sanders. And I'm wondering why you made that decision.
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: For more than three decades, Bernie Sanders has championed ideas and issues, which have essentially been off the radar of our downsized politics. Those very ideas and issues are ones which have animated The Nation. At the heart of it, I would say, is you have someone in Bernie Sanders who is the real deal, who is honest, who has integrity and is a truth teller about the rigged system that is shafting so many people in this country, the inequality that is leading this country to be a plutocracy, not a democracy. And for those reasons, The Nationbelieved it was an important moment to speak to those issues—there are others—but in Bernie Sanders, there's a political revolution that could upend the distorted priorities of this country, the sweetheart deals too many are getting, the grip of banks and insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies on this country, and speak to a better future. And I think he has opened, whatever happens—and we're aware the road to the White House is steep—he has opened space for a more powerful progressive movement. And he has changed the kind of politics that is possible.
Think of the fact that he has raised—what struck me about our media—and, by the way, the Republicans rail against a liberal media last night—Donald Trump and The New York Times, as Mr. Turnipseed said. It's not a liberal media. It's a corporatized media system that is rigged against the public interest and our democracy. That's why Democracy Now! exists or The Nation exists. And it has—this media system has failed to—you know, until recently, failed to cover Bernie Sanders and his ideas, and has shamefully lavished attention on Donald Trump. And we think that people have seen through that. And I think the media woke up—I'll stop here—when Bernie Sanders raised what? Some $70-plus million from more small donors than President Obama had in 2008. And I think the sadness is our media system and our politics measure viability by money. But people woke up. But the fact that he is unbought, because he's not taking PAC money, he's not taking corporate money—these are small donors—suggests he could put forth a bold agenda and fight for it.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what made you decide to do this primary endorsement? You have done it twice before.
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: Twice before.
AMY GOODMAN: Jesse Jackson.
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: Jesse Jackson, and Barack Obama in 2008. I don't think there's any candidate who—you know, Bernie Sanders, again, has spoken to the issues, has lifted up the issues, has represented the issues and ideas, many of them, the key ones, that The Nation has also. And he—you know, I mean, we believe that inequality is probably the existential crisis of our time—inequality of political power, inequality of economic power, inequality of the ability to engage the world in a different way. And Bernie Sanders is speaking so honestly and truthfully about those issues. He doesn't do small talk well. He also goes into rooms and rouses people. The rallies were as large as Trump's over this last summer. But that is why we believe at this moment that Bernie Sanders is, with integrity and principle, summoning people for a political revolution, as he calls it, which is essentially participatory democracy on steroids and is needed to upend a system that is pretty corroded. And—
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But, Katrina, in that vein, though, the lead—the big support he's getting in places like Iowa—
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —and New Hampshire, these are two of the whitest states in the nation. And the reality is that the path to the Democratic nomination has to go through the cities of America, through the black and brown communities of America. And to what degree has Bernie Sanders been as active or been as well identified—
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: Juan, absolutely.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —with the social movements around police abuse, against racial discrimination, around immigration—
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —as he has among Wall Street battling and antiwar issues?
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: So, thank—I mean, I think the—thank you for reminding me of what is in our editorial. We speak to this very clearly. This is a movement moment in this country. It's a fascinating moment. And Bernie Sanders is also intersecting and lifting up the voices of those movements, whether it's Black Lives Matter. He had tough confrontations with them last summer. He has come forward with a very robust agenda on curbing abusive policing, on racial justice, on ending mass incarceration. He is in constant dialogue with these movements—the climate justice movement, the Fight for 15, reproductive justice movement, the DREAMers. There is no question that he has a tough road, Juan, for all the reasons you described. Those two states, first two states, are primarily white, though they've changed, too, the demography. But he is very tentative, Bernie Sanders is, to building a larger coalition. A lot of people haven't met him yet. He's heading and working in places like South Carolina and in those states.
But listen, I also want to say that the editorial notes that Hillary Clinton is someone of experience, of grit, of intelligence. She has responded to the populist moment. I think she's come, more recently, to some of these issues of economic inequality. I think of the trade deal, where she was moved—again, by the movements of this time. But she would be far, far more preferable to those people we saw on the stage last night. We have a Supreme Court that could be reshaped by the next president. Her foreign policy is hawkish. And I think, unlike other progressive endorsements we've seen from groups, we lay out very clearly why we think there is a real distinction between Hillary Clinton's hawkish foreign policy and Bernie Sanders, who's one of the few candidates recently to say America alone should not be policing this world, as opposed to regime-change foreign policy, and, I think, speaks to a better vision of engagement with the world.
AMY GOODMAN: What's your argument against Hillary Clinton on foreign policy, her hawkish views?
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: You know, she has come out and said it was a mistake to vote for the war authorization in Iraq. Has she learned the lessons from that? We argue not. Libya? She was a key supporter of regime change in Libya. What has happened in Libya? It's become a haven for ISIS. She was a key supporter of ousting Assad, which has fueled an ugly civil war. We need to find a diplomatic resolution to that crisis. She supported the Iran nuclear deal, but, in so doing, she has rejected a broader relationship with Iran. And so, all of those factors—she's very much a cold warrior when it comes to relations with Russia.
And she—I think one power the president has, Amy and Juan, is you bring a new set of people to Washington. The Clintons—and I never want to link Hillary Clinton to her husband, because she's her own person, her own woman. But there is a team of people, particularly in foreign policy, who will be brought back in. And in that context, the hope is with Bernie Sanders. And there is a project underway to—you know, other—fresh faces. Wouldn't Washington be—could be a different place. Obviously, the power, the deep power, the deep state, but you could bring new people who could see, in new ways, what is possible.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to play a clip of Bernie Sanders, then Hillary Clinton. This is Sanders taking aim at Wall Street during a speech here in New York at Town Hall, vowing to break up the biggest banks within a year of taking office.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Greed is not good. In fact, the greed of Wall Street and corporate America is destroying the very fabric of our nation. And here is a New Year's resolution that I will keep if elected president, and that is, if Wall Street does not end its greed, we will end it for them.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that is Bernie Sanders in New York. Well, last night, Hillary Clinton appeared on Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC criticizing Bernie Sanders calling for single-payer healthcare system, accusing Sanders of not laying out how the plan would work or be funded.
HILLARY CLINTON: The only clue that I can find, because he hasn't laid out a plan, is to go back and look at the bills that he's introduced, nine different times. And it's a bit concerning to me, because it would basically end all the kinds of healthcare we know—Medicare; Medicaid; the CHIP program, Children's Health Insurance; TRICARE for the National Guard, military; Affordable Care Act exchange policies; employer-based policies. It would take all that and hand it over to the states. And—
RACHEL MADDOW: Well, he calls it Medicare for all.
HILLARY CLINTON: But—but—
RACHEL MADDOW: He's basically saying we'd replace the existing system—
HILLARY CLINTON: But Medicare for all is not—is not the same, if you're turning it over to the states. Now, if he has changed his mind, after introducing that bill nine times, he owes it to the public to tell them. If he has changed his mind about having the federal government pay 86 percent of the cost and having states have to come up with the remaining 14 percent, when in fact we know Republican governors won't even pay for Medicaid, which they are going to get initially for nothing, well, that's what we mean.
AMY GOODMAN: That's Hillary Clinton. And she is running scared right now. I mean, the numbers, they are—I mean, he is really surging, if you believe the polls. Sanders is surging in both Iowa and, of course, in his neighboring state—
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: Absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: —from Vermont of New Hampshire. But what about what she said about single-payer healthcare and universal healthcare?
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: The "Kumbaya" moment is over, Amy, as they enter into these two states. Let me just say, though, on the Wall Street clip you used, there's no question that there are two different visions of regulating Wall Street. Bernie Sanders talks about breaking up the big banks; Hillary Clinton is more reliant on regulation. I think, again, Senator Sanders is unbought and able to speak honestly about what he would do. Hillary Clinton has moved on those issues.
On those single payer, what struck me is how politically, if I could, you know, tone-deaf what Hillary Clinton is doing, because Medicare for all is so popular among not just the Democratic base, but so many people. Why not say, you know, Senator Sanders may be unrealistic, we can't get to Medicare for all as quickly as he's saying, it's too expensive? But, in fact, what she's saying is mischaracterizing this idea that it's all going to go back to the states, that he's going to take away your Medicare, your Obamacare, your SCHIP. He's not. And she's not attributing the cost savings. We are the only Western industrialized country that doesn't have healthcare for all. We're paying more. The pharmaceutical companies are ripping us off. And she should be saying, "OK, Obamacare is here, but the history of American reform is we've got to build on it incrementally." Instead, she's kind of saying, "He's trying to take away your healthcare." No, he's not. He's trying to bring you Medicare for all, which is very popular and has been stymied by pharmaceutical companies. So I think it's a misguided attack. And I think it's misguided of her also to take Wall Street Journal editorials attributing how we'd all have to pay $15 trillion more, without understanding the benefits of savings if you had a single-payer, Medicare-for-all program.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I'd like to ask Tom Turnipseed, if he's still with us, to talk about the legacy of this politics of fear that you mentioned was shown in the Republican debate. George Wallace did not succeed, obviously, in 1968, but he did get 13 percent of the vote as an independent candidate. And he probably took more voters from the Democrats than he did from the Republicans, because that was the year that Nixon beat Hubert Humphrey, and basically paved the way, many believe, for the Republican Party to begin grabbing ethnic white voters out of the Democratic Party. Do you see, in this new politics of fear, any possibility of sort of a realignment of the voters around some of the ideas of a Trump or even a Ted Cruz?
TOM TURNIPSEED: Gosh, it's hard to tell. I know that they're appealing to, in my opinion, to poor white people that feel like they've been kind of left out. And that's, you know, a big similarity. You know, the one thing, too, that's very, very interesting to me is how this idea of Donald Trump, in, you know, how he's really using that fear thing—and, you know, you got to be afraid of the Chinese and the Mexicans and so forth and so on—and then, you know, he's doing a hell of a job doing it, too.
The other thing I want to say and get this in edge-wise—I was trying to tell it a minute ago—me being here in South Carolina and maybe knowing a little bit about what's going on, is that when Bernie Sanders came down here, he spoke to a couple of African-American colleges, you know, that are predominantly African-American, and got a real good reception. He's doing a good job at working the African-American vote down here. I guess Hillary is still a little bit ahead, you know, with the African-American vote, and maybe overall, but he's coming on strong here in South Carolina, believe it or not.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we're going to leave it there right now, and I want to thank you both for being with us.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Obama, Lies, and Cover Ups

THE ABSURD TIMES


RED & BLACK == BIRD FLU
THE WORLD TODAY

BIRDS WITH FLU
The bird flu pandemic is the most covered up story today. In the upper illustration you can seen all the areas infected with the vile disease, threatening our little children. Birds migrate, you know, Whooping Cranes, Ostriches, all sorts of birds can catch this disease, and if the black areas you can see where it has been transmitted to humans. Yet not one word about it this election cycle. I suggest you warn all of your friends to keep on the lookout for sneezing birds, especially chickens, because this threatens us all. The press has covered it all up under the pretense of doing "investigative journalism" on more important topics (see on Obama, below). I urge all of you to call all superdelegates you can and tell them to support whichever candidate first mentions bird flu!! This is life and death and our media ignores it.
OBAMA: The New York Times has investigated Omama's revelation that he once used illegal drugs, pot, drinking, and some cocaine, or "blow," but say how he was going down the wrong path and quit. Well, it turns out that nobody they could find who knew him at the time could confirm this one bit. In fact, some even denied it! The Times speculated that he made it all up! Imagine, running for the Presidency of the United States and never taking dope? Intolerable!! The Decider did and is an alcoholic (in a dry drunk). Bill Clinton at least smelled pot once. Al Gore said he had smoked it. Obama, don't try to cover it up. You are not a drug user and no use claiming to be. I'm endorsing McCain because he was given morphine upon return from Viet Nam, but that has never been proven, so I take it back, I DON'T endorse McCain. Hillary? She was a Goldwater Republican of all things -- how square can you get? Huckabee? It could explain why he supports a geo-centric solar system, but I doubt it. It would be interesting and quite amusing to hear him explain epicycles.
Despite all of the above, Obama won all three primaries last night by very large margins. He will win Wisconsin. Her daughter was there last week "pimping" for her mom, but did not make any sale. She did the same in mid-Missouri, but MSNBC's David Schuster was suspended for saying that. I was there at the time, and he was right -- just he used to word in a slang sense, so he has been suspended. Naughty Schuster, "Pimping, indeed!"
*****************************************************

Here is a pretty good review of a book on the Mideast problems. Thanks to the sender:
Michael Neumann's /The Case Against Israel/
by Gilles d'Aymery
Book Review
Neumann, Michael: /The Case Against Israel,/ CounterPunch
<http://www.counterpunch.org/> and AK Press,
<http://www.akpress.org/> January 2006, ISBN 1-90485-946-1, 220
pages, $16.50 (paperback)
/(Swans - December 19, 2005)/ The British essayist and novelist Edward
Morgan Forster (1879-1970), author of /A Room With A View/ and /A
Passage To India,/ wrote in his 1951 collection of essays, /Two Cheers
for Democracy,/ "I suspect that the only books that influence us are
those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down
our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves." Amidst the one
hundred-plus books I've read on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, none
fits Forster's sentiment better than Michael Neumann's /The Case Against
Israel./ This is simply the most cogent, reasoned, and lucid
argumentation I have ever read in support of a two-state solution to the
century-old conflict. Short (220 pages); to the point but not in your
face; impeccably researched with 26 pages of references including a list
of 28 important works, 188 endnotes, and a full index; there is no stone
left unturned and practically no issue left unexplained in this highly
condensed, unadulterated, and coherent analysis.
The book's title should not mislead readers. Those who follow the
horrific tribulations of that small real estate with its strategic and
religious confluences will obviously recognize that the title is a play
on, or a response to, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz's /The Case
for Israel/ (John Wiley & Sons, August 2003). The argumentation is by
and large a refutation of Dershowitz's case though it is not a
point-by-point rebuttal of the 32 questions Dershowitz attempted
(poorly) to answer. In actuality, Dershowitz is only mentioned once in
the entire book. Instead of rebutting a lawyerly discourse based on
polemical diatribes, crass emotionalism, and the repetitive
regurgitation of falsities, Michael Neumann focuses on what has been
lost in our recent historical travails: reality-based analysis --
historical facts, formal logic, ethics, behavioral rationality,
philosophy, morality, and politics (Neumann is a professor of moral and
political philosophy at Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario,
Canada). While he does not posit that he's an expert or historian,
history is no stranger to him: his father, Franz Neumann, was the author
of /Behemoth: the structure and practice of national socialism,
1933-1944,/ the classic history of Nazi Germany. (And, for what it's
worth, his stepfather was Herbert Marcuse.)
Indeed, Neumann convincingly debunks the old canards, myths, and
fallacies advanced by Dershowitz and the legions of Israeli apologetics:
The Zionist project was about redeeming the land or creating a
"homeland" for the Jews, the bible says god gave the land to the Jews;
the Palestinians did not /really/ exist (they're only /Arabs/), their
actual state is Jordan; they hate the Jews; they want to throw them to
the sea; they never did and don't want to compromise (they are
/jusqu'au-boutistes/); they are terrorists; there is no moral
equivalence between Palestinian and Israeli violence (the former is
terroristic, the latter sheer self defense); Israel is a "beacon of
light" (of democracy, Western values) judged by a "double standard";
critics of Israel are anti-Semites, etc.
The last point -- opposition to Israel is anti-Semitic -- is quickly
dismissed by the author. First, he has already addressed the charge in a
brilliant essay, "What Is Anti-Semitism?", published in /The Politics of
Anti-Semitism/ (CounterPunch/AK Press, 2004), also reviewed in these
pages. <../art10/ga176.html> Second, "since not all Jews are Israelis or
supporters of Israel, to be against all Israelis or Israel, is not to be
against all Jews." Third, most criticisms are directed against the
policies of Israel toward the Palestinians, not the existence of Israel;
and lastly, as he states, "[N]o doubt many anti-Semites oppose Israel,
and do so for anti-Semitic reasons, and conceal their motives. [But]
none of this is relevant to whether or not Israel is in fact in the
wrong." "No doubt," he concludes, "many people opposed Japanese fascism
for racist reasons. It does not follow that such opposition was
mistaken." End of discussion. Michael Neumann shows little patience with
irrelevancies and false arguments.
Furthermore, he does not make a legal disputation against Israel but
confines his attention to a "moral and political argument," in search of
"what /ought/ to occur in Palestine, what solution to the conflict
/should/ be adopted," and he relies on three widely accepted views in
political philosophy: That "there is some basic right of self-defense
that on occasion permits a violent response"; that "one group can't
normally acquire the power of life and death over another group without
their consent"; and that one is responsible for the foreseeable
consequences of one's action whatever the intentions that motivated it.
Then he lays out his claim in two parts and dispassionately demonstrates
that the Zionists and Israel with their allies /du jour/ have mostly
been in the wrong in their dealings with the Palestinians, and that the
end of the conflict necessitates the unilateral end of the occupation
and the recognition of the Palestinian people within the sovereign
borders of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. His case is not so much
/against/ Israel that it is /in favor of/ a Palestinian state.
"/The central fact of the conflict is that Zionists sought sovereignty
in Palestine./ From this, all else follows: the Arab response and all
that came after." (emphasis in the book) "Israel is the illegitimate
child of ethnic nationalism." These are the two statements that best
summarize "Zionism and the Birth of Israel," the first part of /The Case
Against Israel./ They are reinforced by a methodical, logical, and
historical narrative. From the inception of the Zionist project in the
late 19th century, Zionism was not about a safe heaven (the "saving
Jews" advocacy line would come much later, in the ashes of the
Holocaust, and is not even convincing, as Neumann shows), or having a
"homeland," or redeeming ancestors' territories -- all contentions that
keep being rehashed to this day. It was about taking sovereignty over a
foreign land, a land inhabited by a people who had no interest or reason
to be dominated in matters of life and death by Jews. From Theodore
Herzl to David Ben Gurion, Zionists were about creating a state in
Palestine -- a state, with its monopoly on power, of the Jews, by the
Jews, and for the Jews. It matters not whether the Zionists were
enlightened socialists, or idealists, or racists. What matters is that a
group of people, foreign to the land, wanted to impose their sovereignty
through expropriation -- and we now know, through expulsion too -- on
another group of people that inhabited that land. This, contends
Neumann, was the first mortal threat to the Palestinians -- a threat
they could not but oppose and resist through violent or non-violent
means. It surely began in non-violence with the pleas from Palestinian
notables to the European powers to stop the influx of Jews in Palestine,
but the pleas were not heeded and blood began to flow as early as the
1920s. It went downhill from then on.
Neumann notes that at the very moment Europeans were turning their backs
on ethnic nationalism that had been so devastating, Zionists were
imposing their own ethno-nationalism in Palestine. The establishment of
sovereignty by one ethnic group over another has quite logically -- and
sadly -- led to the consequences that we've witnessed for so long. For him,
Zionism always was, despite strategically motivated denials and
brief flirtations with other objectives [e.g., bi-nationalism], an
attempt to establish Jewish sovereignty over Palestine. This project
was illegitimate. Neither history nor religion, nor the sufferings
of Jews in the Nazi era, sufficed to justify it. It posed a mortal
threat to the Palestinians, and it left no room for meaningful
compromise. Given that the Palestinians had no way to overcome
Zionism peacefully, it also justified some form of violent resistance.
By 1948 the Jewish state in Palestine was a /fait accompli,/ and its
existence quickly earned international legitimacy. By the early 1970s,
following Israel's wars (1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973) and the military
supremacy of the Jewish state, the existence of Israel was assured and
secured. But, this /fait accompli/ was not enough for the Zionists.
Sovereignty within the 1948 borders was a tactical step in the direction
of wider ambitions that went back all the way to early Zionism: Greater
Israel. In the next part of his exposé, "The Current Situation," Michael
Neumann examines the second mortal threat to the Palestinians -- the
continuation of the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and,
even more threatening to their existence, the settlement of these
occupied territories -- that has resulted in the predictable, and
understandable, violence that continues to this day.
The policies undertaken by the Israeli governments (both Labor and
Likud) following the pre-emptive Six-Day War in 1967 -- occupation and
settlement of the West Bank and Gaza -- will quite possibly be recorded
by historians as the single most damaging political calculation ever
made by this small state. Their consequences have now become a threat to
its existence; not its physical existence, which is quite secure, but
its moral existence -- a threat to the moral fabric of Israeli society.
The opprobrium Israel faces in the entire world, with the lonely
exception of the United States, to which one could add the Marshall
Islands and Micronesia, can only be traced to the implacable
continuation of these policies. This young country so endeared and
admired in the 1950s and 1960s even though it was born out of the
expropriation, partial expulsion, and imposition of a foreign
sovereignty over the remaining indigenous population, the Palestinians,
has become an international pariah. The time has long passed since one
could speak of "a land without people, waiting for a people without
land," or, as Golda Meir stated in 1969, "It was not as though there was
a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their
country away from them. They did not exist."
It turns out that they did exist, were largely dispossessed, and became
the subjects of an alien sovereignty; and they still exist, are still
being dispossessed, and remain subjugated to a violent and humiliating
occupation. The outcome could have been quite different. In the wake of
the Six-Day War, the Palestinians hoped for an independent state and
regarded the Israeli victory as a means to free themselves from
Jordanian rule. This is not a well-known historical fact, but Neumann
documents that for a short flimsy period the Palestinians felt that the
Israelis were their liberators. The Palestinians let the Israelis know
that they were ready to negotiate an immediate settlement to establish
their own sovereign state alongside Israel. Their calls were not
answered or, to put it slightly differently, the answer was loud and
clear. Israel annexed East Jerusalem and started its settlement policy.
It's worth quoting a citation from a speech by Israeli Defense Minister
Moshe Dayan:
This is what used to be called 'Jew after Jew'... It meant
expansion, more Jews, more villages, more settlements. Twenty years
ago we were 600,000; today we are near three million. There should
be no Jew who says 'that's enough,' no one who says 'we are nearing
the end of the road.' ...It is the same with the land. ...there will
be complaints against you if you come and say: 'up to here.' Your
duty is to not stop; it is to keep your sword unsheathed, to have
faith, to keep the flag flying. You must not call a halt - heaven
forbid - and say 'that's all; up there, up to Degania, to
Musfallasim, to Nabal Oz!' For that is not all.
Which brings Michael Neumann to comment on "the comparison with fascist
ideologies of 'blood and soil'"...and leads him to cover the deliberate
ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians that has taken place ever since, as
well as the inevitable violent resistance from the Palestinians. Their
only choice was, and remains, to leave the territories or to resist.
What's so infuriating here, and well documented by the author, is that
Israeli leaders have consistently acknowledged -- not so much in public,
for it is yet another argument used in the propaganda war to appropriate
the Occupied Territories -- the uselessness of these territories for the
strategic defense of Israel. The Palestinians have no alternative but to
resist, when Israel has an obvious one, recommended by many Israeli
military experts: unilateral withdrawal.
Yet again, it is the Palestinians that are accused of violent actions
and faulted for not resorting to non-violence. But, as Neumann
convincingly establishes, "non-violence has never 'worked' in any
politically relevant sense of the word, and there is no reason it ever
will." His demonstration, using the examples of Gandhi (Indian
independence), Martin Luther King (US Civil Rights), and South Africa
(the end of Apartheid), may be resisted by the partisans of non-violence
but I strongly recommend they read his analysis. A non-violent advocate
myself, I must admit that Neumann makes a compelling case. Non-violence
can only work when the powers-that-be are on the side of the struggle.
Israel, evidently, has not been on the side of the Palestinian struggle
for independence! It should also be noted that the Palestinians have
gone through periods of substantial calm with little or no violence, to
no avail. Suffice it to look at the current Israeli response to the
non-violent resistance and demonstrations against the massive wall of
separation that Israel is slowly completing. It does not make the news
in the U.S. but its harshness is obvious to anyone who cares to look.
So, we are left with the old hatred. "They" hate us...always
have...always will. How, then, can we have a Palestinian state next door
that will forever be Israel's enemy and never accept its existence?
Neumann answers this old hogwash with the precision of a surgeon. Hatred
comes from war. Hatred comes from occupation and from being treated
worse than dogs. Hatred slowly rescinds with peace. And is not peace
with Egypt (and Jordan) proof that the existence of the state of Israel
is accepted by its former enemies? Even the latest bombastic comments
originating in Iran cannot hide the actuality: Israel is a fully secured
country whose legitimacy, within its 1948 boundaries, is a fact, fully
recognized by the overwhelming majority of the world.
Neumann then turns his attention to terror and terrorism, which he
dissects in both practical and moral terms. He also examines how Israel
became an ally of the USA ("a child of the Cold War") and the role of US
Evangelical Christians in the support of Greater Israel; why the
alliance should end, for the benefit of all -- Israelis, Jews,
Americans, Palestinians... -- and whether Israel is judged by a double
standard, or "higher standard," as well it should be since, as the
narrative goes, the country is deemed by its proselytizers a /Great
Beacon of Light./
But I can't get into his rationale further; this review is already too
long. I must confess that having a natural contrariant propensity, I was
humbled by Michael Neumann as I could find nothing to object to in the
case he makes. Perhaps he could have covered the importance of the West
Bank aquifers in Israel's decision to hold tight to the Occupied
Territories and colonize them; but I suspect he would dismiss this point
as yet another irrelevancy that besieges this sorry state of
affairs...and, darn, he would be correct.
To close: I very much appreciate the even-handedness of Neumann's
precise, thought through, and well-documented rationale. Very few people
have the capability and the character to be intellectually relevant and
to address this divisive subject so objectively. Yet, I sensed a
subterraneous emotional thread in his faultless, short, yet exhaustive,
dissertation: A call for justice. People from all backgrounds, Jews and
non-Jews alike, are clamoring with quiet certitude: Enough is enough. A
growing number of Israeli and Jewish people all over the world,
including the U.S., are courageously raising their voices in favor of
the end of the occupation. Michael Neumann is one of these voices. He
deserves to be heard and widely disseminated. Please buy the book, read
it, and if you feel like it, prove me wrong.
· · · · · ·
Neumann, Michael: /The Case Against Israel,/ CounterPunch
<http://www.counterpunch.org/> and AK Press,
<http://www.akpress.org/> January 2006, ISBN 1-90485-946-1, 220
pages, $16.50 (paperback) -- You can buy the book directly from
/CounterPunch's/ On-line Bookstore.
<http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CP_Books.html>
You can also purchase it from your local independent bookstore
through Booksense <http://www.booksense.com/>.
Simply enter your Zip code and click on "Go" to find all local
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