Punked by Putin -- and rightfully so

(Updated below)
Russian president Vladimir Putin not only called the Obama Administration's bluff  by offering to intervene in Syria, he made the Changeling look like the warmongering, Murderer-in-Chief that he is -- to the entire world.  Большое спасибо, президент Путин!

(Photo courtesy of Leon Kuhn)

In his September 11 op-ed, Putin said to America -- what I'm sure -- plenty other countries are feeling.  He took the Changeling to the wood shed (with a few licks to Shrub for good measure), by using his own "rule of law" rhetoric to slap him in the face.  Who woulda thunk it?  The ex(?)-KGB guy comes out smellin' like a rose as he artfully lays bare all the crimes against humanity the U.S. government has committed over the last 12 years.  Priceless!

I'm sure the Zionist AIPACers, as well as the New World Order PNACers (now the FDDers) are mad as hell right now that their little chicken hawk (emphasis on chicken for so-o-o-o many reasons) mucked up their plans to steamroll the Middle East.  Good!  I'm sick of all of them any-damned-way.

John Pilger speaks to how their "absolute power corrupts absolutely" here:

Under the "weak" Obama, militarism has risen perhaps as never before. With not a single tank on the White House lawn, a military coup has taken place in Washington. In 2008, while his liberal devotees dried their eyes, Obama accepted the entire Pentagon of his predecessor, George Bush: its wars and war crimes. As the constitution is replaced by an emerging police state, those who destroyed Iraq with shock and awe, and piled up the rubble in Afghanistan and reduced Libya to a Hobbesian nightmare, are ascendant across the US administration. Behind their beribboned façade, more former US soldiers are killing themselves than are dying on battlefields. Last year, 6,500 veterans took their own lives. Put out more flags.

The historian Norman Pollack calls this "liberal fascism". "For goose-steppers," he wrote, "substitute the seemingly more innocuous militarisation of the total culture. And for the bombastic leader, we have the reformer manqué, blithely at work, planning and executing assassination, smiling all the while." Every Tuesday, the "humanitarian" Obama personally oversees a worldwide terror network of drones that "bugsplat" people, their rescuers and mourners. In the west's comfort zones, the first black leader of the land of slavery still feels good, as if his very existence represents a social advance, regardless of his trail of blood. This obeisance to a symbol has all but destroyed the US anti-war movement: Obama's singular achievement. (all emphasis mine)

Read that last line again -- especially all you Black, "symbolism" folk (Soror Norton, are you listening?).  Quite frankly, I could give two shits about a little boy touching the Changeling's hair in the Oval Office -- we're talking about the MURDER of non-white peoples in which he's voluntarily complicit on a huge scale!  How's that for "symbolism?"  Wake the hell up, people (trust me, critical thinking is your friend)!   This is not about Republicans versus Democrats, Family.  That's some manufactured shit, specifically designed to delude.  They're all really the same -- none of whom is "us."

And wonder of wonders, Putin's gambit worked:

The just announced U.S.-Russia agreement in Geneva on a "joint determination to ensure the destruction of the Syrian chemical weapons (CW) program in the soonest and safest manner" sounds the death knell to an attempt by Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to get the U.S. into the war in Syria.

For now, the Changeling's marching orders have changed (cuz he ain't runnin' Jack!).  But don't hold your breath.  As history dictates -- he'll get new ones :



***UPDATE:  Well, it didn't take long for the Changeling to get those new "marching orders"--  Obama to host Benjamin Netanyahu at White House:

Netanyahu said earlier Tuesday that Iran would be at the top of his agenda.

“I intend to focus on the question of stopping Iran's nuclear program, an actual halt to the nuclear program," the Israeli leader said. "And until this is achieved, the pressure on Iran should be intensified and not eased."

Netanyahu also pressed for the United States to strike Syria after an August chemical weapons attack attributed to strongman Bashar Assad’s regime. (emphasis mine)

Um, Bibi?  Stop lying, mkay?  The IAEA has confirmed, time and again, that Iran's "nuclear" program is currently only being used for civilian energy and medicine.  It has no weapons-grade nuclear program unlike Israel's stockpile (thanks to Dr. Vanunu, we all know unequivocally -- you do have a stockpile!).  That said, I see no reason why this sovereign nation shouldn't develop a weapons-grade nuclear program to defend themselves against the likes of those Hitler, Jr. Zionists who are already oppressing their brethren in Palestine.

And of course, Israel's little puppet fell right in line with this little veiled threat, revealing how little he really cares about those children allegedly gassed by Assad and how much he really cares about Israel:

However, Obama recently warned that Iran should not be emboldened by his decision to call off a strike on Syria.

“What the Iranians understand is that the nuclear issue is a far larger issue for us than the chemical weapons issue,” Obama said during an interview this week with ABC. “The threat against Iran — against Israel — that a nuclear Iran poses, is much closer to our core interests. A nuclear arms race in the region is something that would be profoundly destabilizing.” (emphasis mine)

Was that a Freudian slip exposing Israel in his second sentence?  Nah, he doesn't have the guts to do anything like that.  He'd rather be led around by the nose into a war for which he will be eternally blamed -- way to literally "go down" in history, Mr. First Black President.  {smdh}

Related:
- The Honey Obadger: He Don’t Give a Shit
- Taking Exception to Exceptionalism
- Continuity of Military Agenda: Syria Catastrophe Engineered Under Bush, Executed Verbatim Under Obama
- Empire, Hypocrisy and Deflection
- Assad tells Obama to stop arming rebels, or no deal
- US Grandstands on Chemical Weapons Treaty While Violating It
- Syria Distraction Gone, What Will Obama Use to Cover Passage of TPP or a Comparable Sneak Attack on the Middle Class?
- Background and Articles relating to Project for a New American Century

A brief series interlude: Death in 3s, an uncomfortably close call and some belated "Ruminations"

In the last three months, death has knocked on my family's door three times.  I'm just now getting back home -- from yet another a funeral.

My aunt, the second of my grandmother's children (my mother was the first), died of a heart attack at 81 years old in mid-February.  I'd flown to Florida to take care of some tenant/maintenance issues at the house there, when I got the call.  I handled the headaches and changed my airline ticket and rental car drop-off location, and then drove the nine or so hours home so I could be there.

I flew back from there, and by the time I got back to Texas, I got a call shortly thereafter that her daughter's husband had died in March due to complications from sickle cell anemia (I'd planned to go to his funeral, but couldn't work it out financially). Then, the man who helped raise me and my brother after my parents divorced, passed away last week after some long-suffering and debilitating effects of Alzheimer's at 88 years old. His daughters and I were like sisters -- there was no way I wouldn't  show up for his "home-going."

I flew home Thursday morning.  Here are the stubs from my boarding passes for that leg of the trip:

   

Since my connecting flight was leaving from Terminal C, I went upstairs and rode the Link Train from Terminal A, through Terminal B, to Terminal C.  As I had an almost 2-hour layover, I decided to go to a cafe to get something to eat.  As I stood at the register, waiting to pay, the manager with a walkie-talkie came over to the young sister ringing me up and whispered something her ear.  She looked at me, eyes as big as saucers and said, "There's been a shooting in Terminal B!"  I said, "What?!  How?!  The only folks with guns in the terminals are the TSA people right?"  She said she didn't know who'd done the shooting, but she was going to find out.  She finished ringing me up and went in a back room with her manager.

I sat at a table close to the register, hoping to get some more details when she came back out, but she never did.  I just sat there nervously eating, eyes flitting around the cafe.  When I finished, I went to my gate and said to myself, "Let me hurry up and get the hay-ell on that damned plane!"

I got on, but we just sat on the tarmac, delayed because there were passengers who'd arrived at Terminal B but were stuck there.  They waited for a little while (the flight was fully booked) and then decided to go ahead and leave -- there were quite a few empty seats.

When I finally got home, I told my son what had just happened and we flicked through the local news channels to see if there was anything on about it.  There was nothing.  Later, I went online and found this, this and this.  And wonder of wonders -- the ass-hats from the NRA were all swooping in for a convention the following day! -- Houston airport shooting hot topic at NRA convention.  I swear, you just can't make this stuff up!

~#~

Ballot Initiative Could Alter District-Congress Relationship:

“When I hear a senator saying he’s of two minds, that’s progress as far as we’re concerned,” Norton said.

This, from DC's  Representative-in-name only, makes sense?  Please.  She (along with the rest of the Black, misleadership class) has been begging for DC statehood/autonomy forever -- to no avail (and the Changeling putting those, "Taxation without Representation" plates on his official vehicle, mattered not one iota either).  Am I the only fool that understands that the powers-that-be have no intention of ever letting that Home Rule thing happen (at least not until they've effectively "bleached" the District of its chocolate residents, that is)??  {smdh}

~#~#~

No, we all can't go to Cuba anytime we want, but what's the big deal about JoeC and Bey going?

(Photo courtesy of Naturally Moi)

I mean, it's not like the Changeling sent them on some kind of educational, or covert 007 mission or anything, right?  And certainly, there's no danger of them putting their heads (OR pennies) together with an Assata Shakur while they were there, kicking around ideas, plans or actions for Black Revolution 2.0, is there?  I sure don't think so (there's sure nothing revolutionary going on with Sasha Fierce over there ---> (quite the contrary actually).

If I thought this young sister was at all culturally savvy (or cared to be), I'd say she did an excellent, undercover job of exposing Mr. & Mrs. "O" for the, "We'll step on, and over, alla y'all -- because we're better than you" selves that they are (but then again, Mrs. "O" did say she felt Bey was a great role model for her daughters.  Wait!  Isn't "Sasha" their younger daughter's name?).  But, unfortunately, I don't think that about the sister.  I'll leave it at that.

What Black folk should have their panties in a knot over, is this piece of work by Ole JoeC:

Culture icon and hip hop superstar Jay-Z has invested in Israeli wireless technology company, Duracell Powermat, and has signed on as the new face of the company. Duracell Powermat, a joint venture between Procter & Gamble and Israel’s Powermat, was announced in September of 2011. Duracell, a brand of batteries manufactured by P&G, has also invested in Powermat.

If I thought he was at all culturally savvy (or cared to be), I'd say he did an excellent job of setting himself up to take Israel's cash (down the road), so he could use it to help the many Africans-who-look-like-him, living in apartheid conditions -- in Israel.  But again, like his wife, I do not think that.  What I do think is, he's just another shabos goy -- just like Russell Simmons (Sorry, you gotta read all the way to the end for the reference).

UPDATE:
A few things on this particular "rumination" -- First, Brother Amenta and I shared this convo on another post recently:

Amenta -- "When Jay Z, easily got the ok to go to Cuba I wondered who in his camp is an agent."
Me -- You're the second person I've read that said that! As I said here, I doubt THEY had a damned 007 clue, but y'all could be right, they could have been the Changeling's "useful idiots!"

A week later, I read Obama Uses JayZ to Trap Assata Shakur, posted over at Freedom Rider (follow the Dhoruba bin Wahad link there to read the entire interview). It included this sentence:   Jay-Z’s delegation included a State-Department “reliable” personage who transmitted the Obama’s administration’s position.  My snark about them not having "a damned 007 clue" was intended, and stands -- as does my "useful idiots" comment.

Second, staying on the subject of Assata Shakur, Sis. Carolyn over at Perspectives... (see sidebar) shared this link with me recently: Statement by the National Network on Cuba on the placement of Assata Shakur on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list.  A good read, and if you're into those "games people play" with other people's lives, a good move!

Third, according to the Naturally Moi link in Sasha's photo up there on the right, "...the weird outfit is supposed to be an owl."

No folks, THIS is an owl (guess I'm just not visionary enough to connect big green eyes, with big brown ones):

(Photo courtesy of Graham McGeorge, from the 2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

End of update

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What can I say about Amira Hass other than I certainly appreciate the alliance of values she and Sister Cynthia McKinney hold.  Mincing no words here, she mirrors what having "stones" is about (pun intended):

In the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, stones have played a central role. The stone was the symbol of the first Palestinian intifada (1987-1993), as children as young as 8 years old rained their projectiles down on the occupying Israeli army. Soldiers often responded with live ammunition, killing more than 1,000 Palestinians, about 200 of them children. Youths with stones confronting soldiers with Galils and M-16s: Palestinian children took center stage as David against the Israeli Goliath. The image pricked the conscience of many Israelis, and citizens and governments around the world, and ultimately helped force Israeli leaders, including the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, to the negotiating table. (The Oslo agreement they forged with Palestinian negotiators proved to be disastrous; nevertheless, there was a palpable sense during the first intifada that the stone would lead to Palestinian liberation.)

Today, the stone remains a part of Palestinian resistance to Israel’s occupation, which is more entrenched than ever. And while growing numbers of Palestinians advocate nonviolent resistance as the most promising path to a just peace, others strongly defend the right of Palestinians to throw stones as a legitimate act of political resistance against an illegal 47-year military occupation. One of them is an Israeli journalist.

“Throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule,” wrote Amira Hass in an April 3 article in the newspaper Haaretz. “Throwing stones is an action as well as a metaphor of resistance.”...

...In her piece, Hass underscored the “right” and “duty” of Palestinians to resist the occupation in the face of “shooting, torture, land theft, restrictions on movement, and the unequal distribution of water sources.” The Israeli journalist, who unlike nearly every Western correspondent, lives in the occupied West Bank, offered this resistance advice:

“It would make sense for Palestinian schools to introduce basic classes in resistance: ... how to behave when army troops enter your homes; comparing different struggles against colonialism in different countries; how to use a video camera to document the violence of the regime’s representatives; methods to exhaust the military system and its representatives; a weekly day of work in the lands beyond the separation barrier; how to remember identifying details of soldiers who flung you handcuffed to the floor of the jeep, in order to submit a complaint; the rights of detainees and how to insist on them in real time; how to overcome fear of interrogators; and mass efforts to realize the right of movement.”

Not least of these strategies, Hass asserted in the article that has drawn so much heat, is hurling rocks at soldiers: “Stone-throwing is the adjective attached to the subject of ‘We’ve had enough of you, occupiers.’ ” (emphasis mine)

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Pelosi: Members are lined up to sign Paycheck Fairness Act (tried to embed but not allowed).  That damned Nancy Pelosi is somethin' else ain't she?

I got this email from when I was a Democrat and subscribed to the DCCC emails (never cancelled it, I always like being abreast of e'erybody's lies).  And this one would have been too funny for how ignorant they believe most folk are to their tactics of blaming Rethuglicans for obstructing everything, if not for their hubris and my long memory (we don't all have it twisted).  Just like the Democrats held the majority in both the House and the Senate when Shrub & Co. lied us into the Iraq war, they also lied when they engineered the bait-and-switch in favor of Ledbetter versus the real Paycheck Fairness Act:

April 9, 2013

Friends --

As the first woman Speaker of the House, I know a thing or two about challenging the status quo. I'm really proud of that, and I'm proud of all the women who have made our country strong.

But the truth is, we're still a long way from fairness and equality in the workplace -- women make just 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.

Republican obstructionists continue to block progress on paycheck fairness -- tell them to stop acting on the wrong side of history:

Stand with me and women across the country and help us get to 100,000 strong for paycheck fairness >>

Equal work deserves equal pay -- and passing the Paycheck Fairness Act is the next step in the fight for equal pay.

This bill won’t see the light of day unless we hold House Republicans’ feet to the fire. Tell House Republicans it’s time to finally pass the Paycheck Fairness Act:

http://dccc.org/Equal-Pay

Thanks,

Nancy Pelosi

Am I the only one that remembers this dog & pony show, staged to make all you female 'mericans, think the Changeling had immediately done a damned thing about equal pay for women shortly after he burst on the scene?



Or when Pelosi stepped up on the floor in the first week of the 111th Congress, and told the lie again (even though the words on the bottom of the screen tell exactly what Lebetter was really about?



Rosa DeLauro would have done better on her damned own, rather than allowing the Changeling and Pelosi to manipulate a bill she'd worked on so hard, for so a long.

~#~#~#~#~#~

Also, got this petiton from Avaaz and thought about my telling Amenta last year, "Lawd ha' mercy! I knew my people had it right when they were growing their own food and raising their own chickens and hogs out in the country!": 

Dear Avaazers,

It’s unbelievable, but Monsanto and Co. are at it again. These profit-hungry biotech companies have found a way to exclusively ‘own’ something that freely belongs to us all -- our food! They’re trying to patent away our everyday vegetables and fruits like cucumber, broccoli and melons, forcing growers to pay them and risk being sued if they don’t.

But we can stop them from buying up Mother Earth. Companies like Monsanto have found loopholes in European law to get away with this, so we just need to close them shut before they set a dangerous global precedent. And to do that, we need key countries like Germany, France and the Netherlands -- where opposition is already growing -- to call for a vote to stop Monsanto’s plans. The Avaaz community has shifted governments before, and we can do it again.

Many farmers and politicians are already against this -- we just need to bring in people power to pressure these countries to keep Monsanto’s hands off our food. Sign now and share with everyone to help build the biggest food defense call ever:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/monsanto_vs_mother_earth_x/?bCWVXbb&v=23931

Once a patent exists in one country, trade agreements and negotiations often push other countries to honour it as well. That's why these food patents change everything about how our food chain works: for thousands of years, farmers could choose which seeds they’d use without worrying about getting sued for violating intellectual property rights. But now, companies launch expensive legal campaigns to buy patents on conventional plants and force farmers to pay exorbitant royalty fees. Monsanto and Co. claim that patents drive innovation -- but in fact they create a corporate monopoly of our food.

But luckily, the European Patent Office is controlled by 38 member states who, with one vote, can end dangerous patents on food that is bred using conventional methods. Even the European Parliament has issued a statement objecting to these kinds of destructive patents. Now, a massive wave of public outcry could push them to ban the patenting of our everyday food for good.

The situation is dire already -- Monsanto alone owns 36% of all tomato, 32% of sweet pepper and 49% of cauliflower varieties registered in the EU. With a simple regulatory change, we could protect our food, our farmers and our planet from corporate control -- and it's up to us to make it happen:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/monsanto_vs_mother_earth_x/?bCWVXbb&v=23931

The Avaaz community has never been afraid to stand up to corporate capture of our institutions, from pushing back the Rupert Murdoch mafia, to helping ensure that telecoms keep their hands off our Internet. Now it’s time to defend our food supply from this corporate takeover.

With hope and determination,

Jeremy, Michelle, Oli, Dalia, Pascal, Ricken, Diego and the whole Avaaz team

I tell you!  Wa-a-a-y too many folk trying to control the damned world by hook or by crook -- and equally, wa-a-a-y too many of us not giving a shit about it! {smdh}

Related:
- Carnell Moore, Houston Airport Shooter, Left 'Monster Within Me' Suicide Note
- Why the Hunt for Assata Shakur Matters
- On Cuba Trip, Jay-Z Responds To Washington With Verse
- Why Nancy Pelosi Is Calling On Her Colleagues To Force A Fair Pay Vote
- Paycheck Fairness, Ledbetter and the "Walmart Women"
- Soybean Farmer Takes Monsanto to Supreme Court

No guilt this time: the Zionist, ethnic cleansing template, rubber-stamped by the West

I stumbled upon this documentary today and found the history lesson so clear and compelling, that I needed to repost it.  "The Zionist Story -- through the eyes of an Ex-Israeli Soldier," tells the powerful story of how a "European problem," led to land theft and the near erasure of the Palestinian people in Western Asia (fondly called the Middle East by those who prefer to geographically locate it in relation to Western Europe, rather than its actual position within Asia.)



And as BeelzObama the Changeling prepares for his second stroll to the throne in January, let us not forget that the road was paved with plenty of -- Palestinian blood, Israeli money and Americans, blinded by the "Audacity of Hope."

Related:
- Israel’'s Doomsday E-1 Settlement. Diabolical Encroachment to Prospective Palestinian State

“Non-member observer state” -- Palestine inches toward self-determination and human dignity

The fact that I'm not a particularly trusting soul (especially given the top, two "No" votes of the nine) and, that symbolism without substance means absolutely nothing to me -- I gotta say this is going to take some careful, mulling over:



Quicker than you could spit, one of Israel's favorite, lap-dogs had her two cents ready -- Clinton blasts 'unfortunate and counterproductive' U.N. Palestinian resolution:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blasted the United Nations General Assembly Thursday for voting to recognize Palestine as a nonmember state.

"I want to say a few words about the unfortunate and counterproductive resolution at the United Nations General Assembly," Clinton said at an event hosted by Foreign Policy magazine in Washington D.C...."it places further obstacles in the path of peace," Clinton said.

"We have been clear that only through direct negotiations between the parties can the Palestinians and the Israelis achieve the peace that they deserve," Clinton said. (emphasis mine)

Then came Susan Rice, with her, "Ditto" to Hilary's bullshit:



(Anybody else hearing strains of James and Bobby Purify's, "I'm Your Puppet?)

Seeking self-determination is a distraction?  This, from a Black woman, whose "people" (in quotes, because I'm not sure that's how either, she, or her boss see themselves) -- have been fighting for self-determination, ever since, they were brought to these, alleged united states?

Let's be clear -- from Durban, to Benghazi, to Palestine -- the string-pullers have trained both her, and the Changeling extremely well.  Rather than loyalty to any folk who look like them, their steps are undoubtedly ordered by their greed, self-loathing and megalomania (in no particular order).  I find absolutely nothing about either, of which I should be remotely proud.

I began this post on the night of the vote.  For some reason, I did not/could not finish it.  Then, lo and behold within three days, it turned out my suspicions about both of those top, two "No" votes were confirmed when I read this, US Pledges More Funds for Israeli Missile Defense and this -- Israel seizes $120m in Palestinian tax revenue over UN statehood vote:

Israel has seized more than $120m (£75m)in tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in response to last week's overwhelming vote at the UN general assembly to recognise the state of Palestine...

...The financial sanction is Israel's second punitive response to the vote. On Friday, it announced a big settlement expansion programme.

An Israeli official said Israel was entitled to deduct the sum from a debt of more than $200m (£125m) owed by the PA to the Israel Electric Corporation. But he conceded that the move was in response to the UN vote, and that it could be repeated next month. "A lot depends on what the Palestinians do or don't do," he said.

But, call it "God," "Allah," "Jehovah," or my, crisis-of-faith preferred,"Spirit" -- take your pick.  All I know is, I'm eternally grateful that the powers-that-be were stopped (this time), from further linking their greed and brutal inhumanity, especially in Africa -- to a damned  Black face by this:  Susan Rice withdraws for secretary of state.

Her current withdrawal saves me the long, drawn-out pondering as to why in the hell, Black folk supported her for the position in the first, damned place.  The CBC in general and the still-voteless-in-DC, Eleanor Holmes-Norton in particular, certainly ought to be ashamed for this exercise in symbolism madness. {smdh}

Related:
- Israel’s Apartheid Deepens, Along With Its Global Isolation
- Freedom Rider: Susan Rice and American Evil
- Beyond Benghazi: Partisan Rift over Susan Rice Ignores Hawkish Record on War, Africa and Keystone XL
- The revealingly substance-free fight over Susan Rice
- Black Women’s Group Seeks to Support Susan Rice for Secretary of State

Glen Ford -- "making it plain"

Please, follow the source link to the podcast and hear views rarely shared in the MSM.

Related:
Humanitarian Coverup: Why is Obama Silent Over the New Congo War?

As always -- the more things change, the more they stay the same

"John Pilger made the film 'Palestine Is Still The Issue' in 1977. It told how almost a million Palestinians had been forced off their land in 1948, and again in 1967. Twenty five years later, John Pilger returns to the West Bank of Jordan and Gaza, and to Israel, to ask why the Palestinians, whose right of return was affirmed by the United Nations more than half a century ago, are still caught in a terrible limbo - refugees in their own land, controlled by Israel in the longest military occupation in modern times." (emphasis mine)

-- from Palestine is Still the Issue

And now, it's 2012...

Israel's Gaza Rampage: It's Not Just War -- An Interview with John Pilger:

"...And as you've described, the sheer bias of television in the United States means that not even the names of people, of whole families annihilated or most of the families annihilated can be mentioned. You know, what is being stolen here is not just simply Palestine, yet again, but our own consciousness. If we allow this, then there is something of us that goes. That's really at stake here." (emphasis mine)

Quite the bitter taste that word "Occupy" leaves, no?

Not in my name, Mr. President (probably the last time I'll afford you even that titular respect)!!

Little "Chucky" Krauthammer's at it again. His commentary in, Why was there war in Gaza? -- is as ridiculous as his commentary on Glenn Beck's, ridiculous rally on the Mall.  And this is what passes for "clear and balanced journalism," informing we the people. {smdh}

Related:
-What's Missing from CBS's Gaza History?
-After Israel, Hamas reach Gaza cease-fire, both sides claim victory
-Bomb Iran? No. Bomb Gaza? Yes!

"First they came...

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Martin Niemoeller

While the MSM continues to twist the facts to suit the powerful, Israel continues it's murderous attacks on the people of Gaza (where in the hell is Cynthia McKinney when you need her??).  I'd initially planned to repost parts of the extremely on-point piece, "Elites Will Make Gazans of Us All" by Chris Hedges over at Truthdig, but when I visited Dark Daughta's site and saw this video of Hedges delivering his, "It is not a war. it is murder..." speech -- the words, accompanied by those haunting images of what Israel is arrogantly and without conscience, perpetrating against the Palestinian people -- in their own homeland -- shook my very soul.

So with a h/t to my Sister (cuz I can't hold this shit in any longer), here's her post in which the speech is embedded (Please, do check out this Sister's blog!):

~#~

"They are calling out, but greedy psychopaths cannot listen..."




(Follow the link to Hedges' Truthdig piece above -- the entire read is certainly well worth it!)

~#~

Israel has guilted the whole world for sitting back and watching what the Nazis were doing to the Jews, and I kinda get that (wish Black folk had that kind of power and influence regarding slavery and Jim Crow -- "nkali" as my young sister, Chimamanda Adichie describes it.  But then again, alabaster, we are not).  But getting gazillions of dollars from here there and everywhere, museums, special visa and education dispensations and most importantly -- stockpiles of military hardware of every stripe, to include -- "REAL" nuclear WMDs, as well as, missile defense systems to thwart most attacks??  As Hedges says, America is their number one supplier of all of the above.

The "real," exceptional Americans have been Punk'd y'all.  And given ALL THIS (sit back, relax and put your feet up) -- what fool thought that giving up all that shit was a good damned idea?! {smdh}  From the link:

Congress doesn’t seem to share the concern. "Part of the responsibility of Congress," says Bamford, "is not just to oversee the intelligence community but to look into the companies with which the intelligence community contracts. They’re just very sloppy about this." According to the Bush administration intelligence official who spoke with me, "Frustratingly, I did not get the sense that our government was stepping up to this and grasping the bull by the horns." Another former high level U.S. intelligence official told me, "The fact of the vulnerability of our telecom backbone is indisputable. How it came to pass, why nothing has been done, who has done what -- these are the incendiary questions." There is also the fundamental fact that the wiretap technologies implemented by Verint, Narus and other Israeli companies are fully in place and no alternative is on the horizon. "There is a technical path dependence problem," says the Bush administration official. "I have been told nobody else makes software like this for the big digital switches, so that is part of the problem. Other issues," he adds, "compound the problem" -- referring to the sensitivity of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

And that, of course, is the elephant in the room. "Whether it’s a Democratic or Republican administration, you don’t bad-mouth Israel if you want to get ahead," says former CIA counterterrorism officer Philip Giraldi. "Most of the people in the agency were very concerned about Israeli espionage and Israeli actions against U.S. interests. Everybody was aware of it. Everybody hated it. But they wouldn’t get promoted if they spoke out. Israel has a privileged position and that’s the way things are. It’s crazy. And everybody knows it’s crazy." (all emphasis mine)

Given the fact that Bibi's made his loathing of Chocolate Jesus quite clear, can somebody please tell me why I'm thinking that, "keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer" will one day have Israel turning our own weapons on us?  Is it just me, or is this utter madness?

We, who have hearts, minds, souls and an ounce of humanity, would do well to keep Niemoeller's words in the forefront of our consciousness because -- they are already coming!  The Jews, of all people, have become the modern-day Nazis that they so detested.

Better yet, in whatever way you can -- STAND.THE.HELL.UP!  Tell the Changeling and his Congress of not even useful idiots, "I do NOT have Israel's back!!  No more murdering in my name, nor with my tax dollars!"  Of course then -- you might have to duck and cover!

Related:
- Bloodlust in Israel: 'Flatten Gaza, send it back to Middle Ages, they need to die!'
-The US-Israeli Attack on Gaza

A Colin Powell, WMD lecture redux?

Well, it seems it's not enough for the Changeling to back Israel's bloody hands -- seems he's gearing up to get the hands of your sons, daughters, husbands and wives a little bloody as well -- (h/t Pan-African News Wire):

Pentagon Has Plans to Intervene In Syria Under Guise of Seizing "WMD"

Pentagon Says 75,000 Troops Might Be Needed to Seize Syria Chemical Arms

By DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT
New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has told the Obama administration that any military effort to seize Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons would require upward of 75,000 troops, amid increasing concern that the militant group Hezbollah has set up small training camps close to some of the chemical weapons depots, according to senior American officials...

...Mr. Obama has been clear for more than a year that he would resist direct American intervention, but in August he said one circumstance would cause him to revisit that position. “A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized,” he said at a news conference. “That would change my calculus.”

Mr. Obama brought those concerns up again in a news conference on Wednesday, saying that the United States was in close contact with Turkey and Jordan “and obviously Israel, which is having already grave concerns as we do about, for example, movements of chemical weapons that might occur in such a chaotic atmosphere and that could have an impact not just within Syria but on the region as a whole.”...

“There is credible information that the Assad regime has been upgrading and expanding its chemical weapons arsenal, which needs to be maintained,” said Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “A credible delivery capability is also needed, hence the North Korean angle.”

The estimation that it would take 75,000 troops to neutralize the chemical weapons grew out of what Mr. Obama, in his August news conference, referred to as extensive contingency planning for how the United States would respond if the chemical weapons were on the move or appeared vulnerable. (all emphasis mine)

"Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!"

Okay, y'all really got to be shittin' me!!  You mean to tell me that all of you, so washed in Obama-love, will fall for this bullshit -- again! -- just because it's coming from Chocolate Jesus!  If you are -- I tell you,  he's the BEST, damned, deus ex machina (a person or thing that appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly and provides a contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty) money could buy -- and they've paid billions!

Come on people!  You watched Colin Powell, lie his integrity into the toilet for Shrub & Co. with all those, made-for-TV, show-and-tell diagrams about Iraq's WMDs at the U.N.  Don't fall for this let-us-murder-more-folk trick again!  Unless of course, you don't mind sending your loved ones into harm's way while his are snug as a bug in a rug.  Based on my personal experience, it truly is not worth it -- but you decide.

Close-ally murder -- guess we still don't have enough blood on our hands

UPDATE:  My learned Sister Carolyn shared these links with me in the comments, but once I watched, I had to add them here:





And let's not forget where Israel gets their shit (to include those nukes nobody but Mordechai Vanunu is willing to talk about)!  Gilad Shalit is home in Israel, safe and sound and Palestinians are still dying -- while the whole world watches.

~#~

Yesterday, while most Americans were caught up in another episode of "All My Generals," -- this is what Israel was doing in Gaza:



My, my, my.  Sure can't blame Julian Assange, Bradley Manning or WikiLeaks on "exposing" this targeted murder of Ahmed Jabri, the head of Hamas' military wing in the Gaza Strip.  This video is courtesy of the IDF, themselves (pretty sure Qaddaffi, wherever he is, knows exactly what this is all about).

Natasha Lennard's, "The latest from Gaza?" offers an interesting blow-by-blow of the continuing, "David and Goliath" struggle going on (no need to point out who's Goliath is there?).

If it weren't such a tragic piece of reality, I'd have to say h/t to Bibi for boxing the Changeling into that "pragmatic strategy" for which all you armchair enthusiasts (who think you're really a part of this damned game) like to pat his ass on the back. Lest we forget Bibi did support Romney:

But it is tragic, and we, here, should all be ashamed of the blood on our hands (particularly the, "I've got Israel's back" guy):

Israeli aircraft have bombed tunnels on Gaza’s border with Egypt through which basic civilian goods and arms destined for militant groups pass into the tightly blockaded region.

White House adviser Ben Rhodes said Thursday afternoon that the U.S. has asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the group to stop its rocket attacks.

Then he says this!

"We’ve … urged those that have a degree of influence with Hamas such as Turkey, and Egypt and some of our European partners to use that influence to urge Hamas to de-escalate." Meanwhile, Rhodes made clear that no such de-escalation requests were made by the U.S. to Israel. “Ultimately it’s up to the Israeli government to make determinations about how they’re going to carry out their military objectives” he told press. (emphasis mine)

What kind of schizophrenia is that??!

Update (Nov. 15, 11.00 a.m. EST): The death toll continued to rise in Gaza on the second day of Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense — a full military assault which began yesterday with airstrikes that killed Hamas military leader Ahmad Jabari. Reuters, citing the Gaza health ministry, says the death toll in the blockaded region since the start of the Israeli operation has risen to 15, including eight civilians among them a pregnant woman with twins, an 11-month old boy and three infants. Meanwhile three Israelis have been killed since Wednesday by Palestinian rocket fire.

Please, do read all of Ms. Lennard's piece and then explain to me about "balance of power." And when you're done, watch, and think about this:

  

Related:
- Obama's kill list policy compels US support for Israeli attacks on Gaza
-Israel and Hamas Step Up Air Attacks in Gaza Clash
-Israel Escalates Gaza Attack With Assassination
-When Former CIA Chief David Petraeus Enraged the Israel Lobby

Update: "Tails to kites" -- America, Israel and the megalomania of exceptionalism

I'd initially incorporated this into the previous post as an update, but reading it again this morning, it felt buried.  I decided to dig it out because the connect-the-dots observation was one that shouldn't be overlooked.

~#~

There are layers of "dog-whistles"; some  too ridiculous to seriously consider (Republicans do this; Democrats do that -- as if there's any difference), some too serious not to (Zionist manipulation and decimation of a people; sanctions; fomenting rebellions; lying the country into wars).

But at the end of the day, they're all pretty much "dog whistles," intended to interrupt critical thinking and distract from the one thing, to never forget to remember about imperialism -- always follow the money.

Bro. Amenta's comment here, not only  reminded me not to forget, but to tell me a little something new:

Deb, this is an excellent post. It describes the wickedness with which Is-Ra-El operates in that region with the blessing of the U.S.

However, the attack on Iran has little to do with it's nuclear program, and by the way there is NO nuclear program in existance on this Earth that is soley for the purpose of "cheap" energy. The waste product is ALWAYS used for weaponry.

That aside, this bluffing of a combat attack on Iran is merely a veil for real war that is going on.

In Feb 2008 Iran began its Iranian Oil Bourse which began setting prices of oil on the French Stock Exchange. Prior to the advent of the Iranian Oil Bourse only the U.S. and her agencies set the price of oil each and every day. And, all oil bought and sold the world over had to be purchased with the U.S. Dollar aka the Petro Dollar. When Iran set in motion it's Oil Bourse the U.S. began sabre rattling even making plans to attack Iran with nuclear weapons.

At any rate, Iran began setting oil prices in 2008 and on top of that requested that whomever bought oil from them pay in other currencies than the U.S. Dollar aka the Petro Dollar. This caused countries to dump dollars, and those dollars come right back to circulate here in the good ole U.S. And, guess what? Our prices go UP. In other words the value of the USD goes down. The Fed stopped printing the M3 report that trackes how many bills dominated in 10's, 5's and 1's circulate in the country because they knew the flood of bill back in circulation here would alarm those who knew of the report.

(Photo courtesy of hawaiinewsdaily.com)

In retalliation, the U.S. cyber attacked Iran nearly shutting down the it's nuclear program yet, Iran persisted and cut a deal with China and Russia (I think it was early this year) in which both countries agreed to buy Iranian oil utilizing their own currencies and not the U.S. Dollar aka the Petro Dollar.

Another blow to the U.S. Dollar. Thus the seeminly stupid remark by Moron, sorry I mean Mormon Romney stating that Russia is our (his) greatest enemy right now. The Changeling (your great term for this dude) seized upon the ignorance of the voting public and joked Romney was living in the cold war age. No. Moron, there I go again, I mean Mormon Romney is living in this current currency war, but, most of us don't even know there is a war raging. So, The Changeling, sensing our stupidity, (one of the many reason I don't care for this fella, ok all of them would have done what The Changeling did)) jumped on it and many of us ate it up. Transparency for ya, huh? At any rate, both the U.S. and Is-Ra-El are using each other for the sake of their own ends. Is-Ra-El will allow U.S. planes with Iraeli marking go bomb places there and the U.S. lets Is-Ra-El run amuck over the Palestinians many of whom are black folk.

Peace!

Deb said...Bro. Amenta...Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! Why didn't I see it??!! -- probably because I slept the damned, Iranian Oil Bourse thing! This is the exact same reason Qadaffi was murdered and Libya damned-near destroyed! His plan for the introduction of one, African currency -- THE GOLD DINAR!!!...

Oh-h-h this shit is way more foul than I knew! I also didn't know this: "...and by the way there is NO nuclear program in existance on this Earth that is soley for the purpose of "cheap" energy. The waste product is ALWAYS used for weaponry."

~#~

Peace back at you, Brother!  I appreciate the knowledge and I won't forget to remember the next time (as I'm certain there'll be one).

Yes, I'd forgotten to remember why the murders of balking leaders, and the destruction of sovereign nations by America and the "usual suspects" had to take place in Iraq and Libya.  It was way more about those "euros and gold dinars," than it ever was about any pure, R2P "humanitarian concerns" for the people whose lives and countries have been, and remain destroyed.

Related:
- Iran presses ahead with dollar attack

"Tails to kites" -- America, Israel and the megalomania of exceptionalism

When W.E.B. Dubois wrote, "Why I won't vote" in October 1956, I was three months old.  As I read it this week at 56 however, it seemed he'd just written it today! If you don't believe me,  just take the time to read it.

But this post is not about elections (well, not exactly).  It is primarily about Israel's undue influence on, and blatant disregard for, America (except as its battering ram, of course) - and how that influence can be fashioned, into yet another "necessary war" by the Changeling and his handlers, if we don't step up and say loudly,"Never Again!"

Substituting  "Conservatives" for "A.D.A.'s," Dubois hit the nail on its proverbial head with his "kites and tails" analogy in the essay.  It seemed a perfect, and continuing description of the relationship between America and Israel -- "... they seek to act as tails to kites.  But since the kites are self-propelled and radar-controlled, tails are quite superfluous and rather silly."  After watching this newly revealed video, posted by Brother nomad at ironymous this week, there should be no doubt in your mind exactly who the "kite" is:




So, in 2001, any West Bank land that Israel wanted to retain was to be declared, "military and security zones."  And in 2012, we have this, Israel orders demolition of 8 Palestinian villages for IDF training sites; and this, Israel may revive illegal Palestinian home-razing policy -- all while those "quite superfluous and rather silly" tails (America and those other, neocolonial "usual suspects") -- stand by and do nothing.

Adding insult to injury, Bibi brags at the 1:04 click, "I know what America is.  America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in the way."

And nothing proves him more right, about how "very easily" America is to move, than this recent laugh-a-palooza at the DNC (Please, do look at the couple's faces at the 1:09, 2:43 and 3:15 - 3:25 clicks!):



Well Mr. Zogby, you can say, "I don't know" all you want, but according to this piece in the San Francisco Chronicle -- he most certainly did:  Obama Changes Platform to Back Jerusalem as Israeli Capital:

"The president yesterday “said put it back in,” said Robert Wexler, a former Florida Democratic congressman who is president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace.

The change was sought because “the president wanted certainty regarding his steadfast commitment to Israel,” said Wexler, who was part of the discussions among the White House and Democratic lawmakers."

Hm-m-m, seems Bibi really does know "what America is."

"People who treat other people as less than human, must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned."

James Baldwin

With both, Israel and America -- Denying the Israeli Past, while continuing to ignore its present, I can't help but believe that, like America (given its ever-increasing spate of retaliatory incidents from without, as well as home-grown carnage from within), Israel should certainly consider Mr. Baldwin's prescient and wholly logical, admonition.

Fear can either be a great motivator -- or stop you dead in your tracks. And beneath all of Israel's drum-beating and chest-thumping for war with Iran -- I smell fear.

But it's not the, "We're just trying to live peacefully here in our (stolen) homeland, but the Muslim world just hates us and wants to wipe us out" kind of fear, necessarily (though it is that, in a revisionist history kind of way); it seems more like the "poisoned bread" kind of fear, about which Baldwin warned, that says, "Oh shit! Our continuing, foot-on-neck, ethnic cleansing-fueled, occupation will soon bite us in the ass if we don't hurry up and wipe them out" kind of fear -- particularly for the Zionists.

Haaretz writer, Amira Hass, addresses the latter pretty clearly in her, pot-meet-kettle, "Israel must understand it cannot be like America" piece (Yeah, I always like it when somebody other than me, calls "real Americans" out on their hardly, "exceptional" bullshit):

The labyrinth of interchanges and roads on the way to Jerusalem tells of planners, ministers, mayors and contractors who "think America." We have gotten used to dimensions that dwarf anything that is not asphalt - people and trees, for example. We have gotten used to "transportation solutions" that gobble up nature. Moreover it's as if, without meaning to, these so-called solutions are tearing apart the existing social fabric.

If it were only a matter of ministers, planners and asphalt, so be it. But thinking America has become a character trait. Thinking America guides Jewish-Israeli society in its policy toward our very own red Indians. Why should we be less successful than the United States, Canada or Australia, which, as they came into being and gained world eminence, wiped out - to differing degrees - the societies and communities that lived there before?

Now, when the remnants of the first peoples in those countries dare to demand rights, a share in resources and compensation, they no longer endanger whites and their hegemony. And this could be just as true for us...

Though I agree with her that, the "remnants of the first peoples" in the countries she listed, now can, and do "demand rights, a share in resources and compensation," that certainly doesn't mean they're getting anywhere near what they're owed (Now I could be wrong, and  If I am, I'd appreciate someone from those other two countries she mentioned offering their current, real-world experience).

And while they kinda sorta co-exist with their oppressors often in, or very close to, poverty conditions and definitely not equally -- it's obvious their mere existence still seems to threaten the "hegemony" of the alabaster brethren among whom they live.  It's abundantly clear in the way they continue to mistreat them, even down to the refusal of said brethren and sistren to stop using the word "our" when talking about "Others" -- as if they're nothing but personal property (i.e. "our very own red Indians," or Ann Coulter's, "our Blacks," in referring to Herman Cain).

Those who insist "on being white and other lies," are all afraid because of what they've done to other human beings.  They're clearly afraid of the possible vengeance those deeds might one day provoke -- hence the need for all the guns; the police state apparatus; mass incarceration of those to which they've done all these horribly, inhumane things, occupation and yes, war.



In this piece from RT News, Bibi's fear is showing.  And despite Panetta's, Deputy Dawg posturing -- it's evident that this Israeli piece of "bread," which Americans have "cast on the waters," has definitely come "floating back to them poisoned" in the person of one, Benjamin Netanyahu.

(Interesting that Panetta met with Ehud Barak in Ashkelon, the city in which whistle-blowing, nuclear scientist, Mordechai Vanunu was imprisoned for 18 years, because he told the truth about Israel's secret proliferation of nuclear weapons in Dimona.  Kindly allow me this brief, non-revisionist history interlude in the service of that truth):




Back to the afore-mentioned, RT News piece:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said sanctions were not curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. He waved off the visiting Pentagon chief’s advice to stick to a diplomatic resolution of the crisis.

At a Wednesday meeting with US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in Jerusalem, Netanyahu suggested that Israel’s patience with Iran was reaching the end of its tenure.

"Right now the Iranian regime believes that the international community does not have the will to stop its nuclear program," he noted. "This must change, and it must change quickly because time to resolve this issue peacefully is running out."

He stressed that while the sanctions were hurting Iran’s economy, they were failing to force it to abandon its nuclear program.

“Neither sanctions nor diplomacy has yet had any impact on Iran's nuclear weapons program,” Netanyahu said.

Seems the American, Dr. Frankenstein is being backed into a corner by its "monster" -- a corner from which, it will not emerge unscathed.

Sanctions

The Changeling, like his predecessors, is aggressively peddling sanctions as a "soft" approach to stop Iran's alleged, nuclear weapons program, even though Iran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has the "inalienable right," under Article IV, "to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. . .” (something no one has yet been able to dispute they are doing).  Israel on the other hand, as a non-signatory, can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants.

Sanctions are just another bullying, rather than diplomatic attempt to make the Iranians "heel," while covering up the non-partisan greed of America and those "quite superfluous and rather silly" other tails in the Western world. Hold onto your heart, as John Pilger documents the continued fall-out from another of America's "soft" approaches -- sanctions in Iraq:



This is what "American exceptionalism" looks like.  And since, "America is a thing you can move very easily..." -- it seems there'll be plenty more of it. {smdh}

I think I'll end this with some sage words from Noam Chomsky with which I agree: "The US and Israel, Not Iran, Threaten Peace."


Related:
- The Truth About Obama and Israel
- Sukant on Latest Zionist Massacre in Gaza, and Relation to 'Arab Spring'
- The liberal way to run the world - "improve" or we'll kill you
- Iran Call for Nuclear Abolition by 2025 is Unreported by New York Times
- On the verge of an Israeli Spring?
- The Elephant in the map room

Catching up on some "Ruminations"...

Sheridf's, "The Wait of the Nation II:  Parent Companies, the "Bain" of our Existence!" over at The Crunk Feminist Collective, is the best piece I've read about Romney and Bain Capital since all this hullaballoo first broke in the MSM. Here's my comment to her explaining why I think so:

"sheridf…What a wonderful piece of “follow-the-money,” investigative writing! I have to admit, when I saw the title on my emailed subscription, I said, “Argh!, more Romney-Bain sh*it! Does it really matter when he left (besides the fact he may have lied; I mean, Hell, all politicians lie about their money and what they do to get it, if they can get away with it — ALL of them!)?

But this sh*t right here?? This, is the kind of information the MSM and the Changeling’s campaign folk (full disclosure: I’m no fan of his, or them, either!) should be putting out there! Particularly given it’s horribly, negative contributions to the “framing” of our children’s, parents’ and families’ lives (which, as I think about it, speaks to yet another way the current residents of the “Big House,” continue to ignore, “big picture” issues affecting the Black community — I mean, Obesity is/has been his wife’s “signature” issue! Brava my young sister! Thank you for this work…"

Please do take a moment to tune out the MSM's dog-whistles and read this important and very relevant-to-the-Black-community piece of investigative journalism (cuz Lord knows you won't get it from either campaign's talking heads!).

~#~

Glenn Greenwald's got some interesting links in #2 of his "Various Matters" post.  It appears there's at least ONE MSM journalist willing to confront this administration on their undying fealty to Israel.  Glenn has the transcript, but if a picture's worth a 1000 words, then a video is -- priceless! Check it out:

~#~

Now after all this, the Changeling adds insult to injury by, sending "Biden to NAACP convention":

The NAACP had hoped that President Obama would speak during its six-day confab, as he did when campaigning in 2008 and again in 2009. In 2010 Michelle Obama addressed the convention...On Tuesday an NAACP spokesman said the group was reserving a Thursday speaking spot for the president. (emphasis mine)

Well, seems they've certainly got the "hope" part of his "Hope and Change" message down pat!  I guess since Biden thought the Changeling was, "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy...” -- THAT guy thought it was okay to send him to a room full of similarly situated Black folk in his stead. (smdh)  Talk about needing to "take off your bedroom slippers and put on your marching shoes" -- so you can march the hell away from this joker!

I think I can safely say that his tenure in the Big House, has effectively put Blacks in an untenable position.  We've not demanded, nor gotten anything from him!  Who's really going to take us seriously after we've sat back and let him get away with ignoring us for four (maybe eight years) with hardly a collective peep?  Come on family, ain't y'all tired of asking:

**UPDATE:** Obama Administration Creating African American Education Office.  Well, family, he finally threw out one of his "executive order" crumbs.  Oh,  go ahead --  I can just imagine all the, "See!  I told you he cared!" happy-dancin' going on right now!

But wait a minute!  Is it just me? Or did it take over three and a half years AND three months before the election to even spit in this direction? Seems to me, if it looks like a shut-the-hell-up duck, and quacks like a shut-the-hell-up duck -- it's a damned shut-the-hell-up duck!  Just sayin'...

~#~

The Julian Assange Show on RT News continues to offer up some interesting conversation that again, we need not look to the MSM to provide:



Occupy movements notwithstanding -- there appears to be little, if any, danger of popular forces creating practical, functioning, new and significant "models" here, Noam!

~#~

Israeli-Arab community upset over new military draft law (article that accompanies the video):

Arab Israelis make up about 20 per cent of Israel’s population. While they have not traditionally been conscripted by the government, many of them choose to serve willingly, either in the army or community service, thereby becoming eligible for the same social benefits that Jewish Israelis enjoy after serving.

However, the new law would make the above service mandatory for the Arab population, raising questions among a community torn between their loyalty to the Jewish state and their heritage as Palestinians. (emphasis mine)

Man! All I can say is -- that is some re-e-ally sad, split-mind shit right there.

Like many minorities here, the Druze have been trying to be "patriotic" and serve "their country" (even though the Zionists, much like "real Americans" here, see it as their country).  And if they do, they get a shot at a somewhat equal and decidedly "better life" -- at least materially.  But when one considers that the Druze must fight and/or kill, other Palestinians, that whole "material" thing seems a bit hollow (the Civil War springs to mind).  But that's just me.

And then of course, there's this, Israeli Military Draft Panel Defies Netanyahu:

Shaul Mofaz, chairman of parliament's largest party, Kadima, told reporters Netanyahu "crassly" violated their coalition agreement on Monday when he disbanded the panel, which proposed ending sweeping exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men and penalizing them if they dodge the draft. Many Israelis deplore the privileges that the ultra-Orthodox receive, but Netanyahu is reluctant to alienate what are traditional supporters by adopting proposals they vehemently oppose...The draft privileges for the religious date back six decades, when Israel's founders granted exemptions to 400 exemplary seminary students to help rebuild great schools of Jewish learning destroyed in the Holocaust. The numbers of exemptions have steadily ballooned over the years, and today, an estimated 60,000 religious men of military age are exempted. The pattern of studying instead of serving continues long past draft age, with ultra-Orthodox men commonly spending their lives in religious study instead of working, while collecting welfare. (emphasis mine)

Sounds a lot like those "exemptions" enjoyed by many of the well-connected, college-bound in this country, no? -- like this, one of many:  Starting as a freshman at Stanford University in 1966, Romney received a series of deferments, including one for his role as a “minister of religion or divinity student,” that kept him out of Vietnam (read that here). 

So if I'm reading these pieces correctly, mandatory for most Arab-Israelis -- exemptions for all ultra-Orthodox Israelis/Zionists. Hell, I'd be more than a little ticked off my-damned-self!

I had one more, but it's way too long to insert as a mere rumination.  Hope to post it soon.

♬ The wheels on the white supremacy bus go round and round...all through the world ♬ (Part 2)

(Edited & Updated below)
On his Racism in France post, Asabanga commented, “Black/African people all over the world face a struggle for dignity.”  He's absolutely right and it's no secret, that those who are clearly a part of the White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy (definition at the 4:27 click) play a continuous role in the indignities visited upon us.  It is, after all, right out there for all who truly give a damn to see.

And for nearly a month now, I've been waiting to see just who truly gives a damn about the Black/African people struggling for their dignity in Israel. As it turns out, there aren't many--particularly in the Western mainstream media. This from RT News:



Having watched a glut of coverage about the "People of the Sand" from various places in the Middle East, during various phases of imperialist maneuverings by the "usual suspects" (Syria now being the target du jour), I said to myself:

"Self, now you would think, with all this Hitlerism being perpetrated against Africans in Israel, the Fourth Estate would be doing a better job of covering this!  I mean really now.  They're all, already right there, right?  I mean, far as I can see, there's no shortage of stories being churned out by major "news" outlets about all the carnage the Syrian government's been perpetrating.  Israel's been doing the exact same thing--and crickets?!" (smdh)

I don't know why I even asked myself a question whose answer is so obvious.  Both Israel and the Western, mainstream media are a part of that same white supremacy, neither of whom, see Blacks/Africans--as people.  And with media control here, resting squarely in the lap of American Jews, I suspect most of the country will hear little, if anything about Israel's wanton cruelty.

But, young sister, Yvette Carnell, writing at both KultureKritic and Your Black World, has been loudly and faithfully sounding the alarm about yet another, Black holocaust, this one, perpetrated by the European, "Never Again" survivors of similarly abhorrent treatment by the Nazis.  Here's a small sampling:

5/25 - Israeli Mob Attacks Black Immigrants, Netanyahu Vows to Send Blacks 'Home':  Mobs in Tel-Aviv, Israel have taken to the streets to demand that African immigrants be sent home. More than 1,000 angry Israeli citizens took to the streets of the poor and mostly black neighborhood of Hatikva to demand that the African immigrants be made to leave. White nationalist organizations also reportedly ransacked the neighborhood. The protesters claimed that blacks are responsible for an increase in crime rates. (emphasis mine)

Sound familiar?

5/28 - Israeli Parliament Member Apologizes For Calling African Migrants a "Cancer" to Society:  Regev was accused of inflaming the mob, many of whom went out and attacked African migrants, reportedly pulling them off bicycles and beating them, and pelting them with rocks.

In her apology to Israeli news outlets, Regev apologized to holocaust survivors and cancer patients, but not to the African immigrants she called a cancer.

“When I compared the migrant worker phenomenon to cancer I was referring to the way the phenomenon had spread, and not anything else. If anyone took it otherwise and was consequently offended, I apologize and I surely did not intend to hurt either Holocaust survivors or cancer patients,” she said.

...Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to put a fence around the African migrants and then begin the process of sending them to their home countries. (emphasis mine)

A fence?  Like they're cattle?  I gotta say--no "visions of sugarplums danced in my head" on that one!  Felt more like shades of the renamed,  Kunta Kinte Island in The Gambia (formerly James Island); Japanese internment camps in America; GITMO; Krome Detention Center in Miami--and extraordinary rendition jumping around up there!

(Political cartoon courtesy of leonkuhn.org.uk)

6/04 - Israel to Jail African Migrants for up to three years: Yishai, of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party...“The infiltrators along with the Palestinians will quickly bring us to the end of the Zionist dream,” Yishai said. “We do not need to import more problems from Africa.

Aryeh Eldad, another conservative leader asked, says that Israeli troops should shoot any Africans who breached its borders. (emphasis mine)

My, My, My!  Leon Kuhn really hit the nail on the head with this cartoon didn't he?  For sure, as long as Zionism keeps hacking away at the olive-branched hand; there will never be peace in the Middle East.

6/10 - Israel Begins Deportation of African Migrant Workers: Interior Minister Eli Yishai said the round-up will continue until Israel is migrant-free. The government has also increased penalties for Israeli business owners who employ illegal immigrants, up from a two year sentence to up to five years in jail. (emphasis mine)

Round-up?  They really think they're cattle, don't they?  ::rolls eyes in disgust::  Would interpreting "migrant-free" as "extermination through expulsion" be a bit much?

~#~

While "giving a damn," is without a doubt, important--equally important, is to critically examine what one sees, hears, and are told to think.  To wit, the Changeling's March 4, 2012, "when the chips are down, I have Israel's back" AIPAC speech.

Kindly bear with me as I try, with the help of Dr. John Henrik Clarke, to address some of the bullshit the Changeling put out there for AIPAC's amusement (and cash of course).

During the speech, Israel's latest, U.S. government shabbos goy said:

Shimon was born a world away from here, in a shtetl in what was then Poland, a few years after the end of the first world war. But his heart was always in Israel, the historic homeland of the Jewish people. And when he was just a boy he made his journey across land and sea - toward home. (emphasis mine)

Now I'm pretty sure Israel's been having the doubly, distinct pleasure, of using the hell out of this guy (What?  Why doubly?  Well, 1:  He is the figurehead of their most generous client-state, and 2:  He's a society-identified Black man, born of an African father.  Given the topic herein, I suspect jerking his chain is quite entertaining for them)  but, when it comes to historical fact--I'd trust the wisdom and research of the late, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, before I'd listen to anything the Changeling had to say (part of that, "critically examine what one sees, hears, and is told to think" thing).

Dr. Clarke's work, with all of its easily documented truths, affords us an opportunity of a lifetime, to learn the truth about our place in this world (the one everybody keeps trying to convince us we never had).  Alongside that, there's the collateral, and wonderfully useful benefit--of being able to set the record straight whenever other people lie.  Regarding the Changeling's "historic homeland" assertion, I think it'd  be best, in this instance, for Dr. Clarke to do just that, in his own words:



Okay, despite the fact that there is historical (not folkloric or mythological) evidence, that the word Jew is a European invention, pasted on a religion that existed wa-a-ay before they came up with the word--means nothing. Now that I think about it though, historical evidence has never meant much when it comes to adherents of white supremacy. They just appropriate, revise, spew; appropriate, revise, spew--until they've taken over the narratives of everyone else's lives, while running from their own.

Moving on...



Please hang in there through the glitches in the video, it's worth it. I guess if you're "white," or acting like you are (see first related article below), it just sticks in your craw--FOREVER--when you know your entrance "into human history" was predicated on the benevolence of Black folk, whom you thought you were better than, but you later found out, were head-and-shoulders above anything you brought to the table and who, because you showed neither respect nor gratitude for either their humanity or generosity, told you to get the hell out of their country.

Dr. Clarke from the 6:57 - 7:34 click: "Sometime ago, someone was arguing about who, is our friend...and I said that, "I would not be surprised, if the day would come, when I would see the Jews and the Arabs in the same political bed against the African people." (emphasis his)

When you think about Libya, you have to admit he was pretty prescient, no?

From the 8:06 - 9:06 click:  "Competent historians, do the same thing, to prove their cases as competent lawyers--they cite a precedent. They point where it has already happened.  There has already been, a relationship between Africans, and Jews, and Arabs--in Spain, for 800 years, when the African was the military arm, that held Spain in the Mediterranean.  And when they lost the power,  the Arabs and the Jews came together, turned on the Africans, and began to enslave them. The Jews went to Holland, and found the Dutch East India and the Dutch West India Company and subsequently, helped to find (sic) South Africa." (emphasis his)

(A brief aside: Dr. Clarke's mention of the East India Company, reminds me of how "media ignoring the truth" is taught here. During my one-year stint in DC at a journalism grad school, our "Ethics" class was divided into groups, with each assigned a philosopher about whom, a presentation was to be made later on in the semester.  The group assigned John Stuart Mill, gave a blatantly disingenuous presentation, dealing mostly with his, "On Liberty"--but they totally left out his more than 30-year career in the slave trade with Britain's, East India Trading Company.  During the Q & A after, I asked them about their omission (which to my mind, negated all the " on liberty" talk). To a person, they all said they knew about it, but thought it best to leave that part out!  I immediately blurted out, "And you find that to be ethical?"  Nothin' but "crickets," even from the teacher.)

Stay with me, he's not done:



Dr. Clarke, from the 2:54 - 3:34 click: "But the European, tries to dominate, everything he is a part of.  And nothing came from the European mind, that did not have, as its intention, the facilitation, of the European domination of the world. This is the essential mission of every European, whether he is a Capitalist, or Communist, or, Christian, or Holy-Roller."(emphasis his)

All we need do, is look around--wherever we are--to see that what he says is so. Europeans, in collusion with those others who are a part of the White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy (based on bell's definition), have been on that "essential mission" since time immemorial.

From the 7:52  - 9:03 click:  "But they drew the idea of a state, from mythology.  Because, they never had a state, that wasn't stolen property.  The "homeland" of the European Jew is Europe! Now they can go back into folklore and mythology, and tell you about a god named, "Yahweh," who told them to get thee to Palestine and get their homeland.  But who told, you, that God was ever in the Real Estate business?  And who told, the God, that Palestine was unoccupied?  Always "occupying" something that's already, occupied, and throwing out, somebody else." (emphasis his)

That last sentence, is the main reason those now, near-defunct, "Occupy" movements didn't sit well with me (too much bad history attached to that word).

Moving on...



Dr. Clarke, from the 00:29 - 1:50 click:  "Look at, Palestine, geographically.  It's a door that swings, three ways:  It's at the back door of Europe, the side door of western Asia, and the front door of Africa.  Strategically, it is well-located.  It never, absolutely never, belonged to any, European people.  And this is another thing that might, shock some of our Moslem friends, in all honesty, in early history, it never, it wasn't (sic) belong to the any Arabs either.  It was an African country.  The Arabs didn't get there in any appreciable number til about 1600 AD.  I'm not saying they shouldn't live there, but as a matter of historical fact, it's not the original home of the Arabs either.  But people don't even ask questions about the Arabs."

From the 6:57 - 7:06 click:  "My main point is that Zionism, and the spread of colonialism, walk side-by-side. (emphasis his)

And anyone with eyes to see, has to know that walk continues to this day--in Israel.

So, believe the Changeling's "historic homeland" foolishness if you need to, or, you can get some of those books Dr. Clarke referenced in the videos and learn about the rich legacy of African people all over the world, and be able to set people who lie--straight; as James Baldwin said, "...know whence you came."

Back to that speech:

In his life, he has fought for Israel’s independence, and he has fought for peace and security...But beyond these extraordinary achievements, he has also been a powerful moral voice that reminds us that right makes might - not the other way around.

Shimon once described the story of the Jewish people by saying it proved that, “slings, arrows and gas chambers can annihilate man, but cannot destroy human values, dignity, and freedom.” And he has lived those values. He has taught us to ask more of ourselves and to empathize more with our fellow human beings. I am grateful for his life’s work and his moral example.

Say what?!  Is he talking about the same Shimon and Jewish people that this "Report for the African Refugee Development Center (ARDC) to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) - submitted January 30, 2012" is talking about??:



I can't begin to express, how painfully enraged I am by all the white supremacist hypocrisy in this video--so much so, that I won't do my usual blow-by-blow this time.  There just isn't enough space.  I know it's a little long, but please do watch the whole thing (even if you have to break it up).  I'm sure after you do, your blow-by-blow list will absolutely rival mine.

But, there is one thing I just have to say.  Given the report date and the period it covered, it's evident that, up to and even during the time that the Changeling stood before AIPAC, jiggin' for Jewish dollars--"Bibi" and his Zionist, colonialists-cum-neocolonialists henchmen, had been acting like run-of-the-mill, neo-Nazis toward Africans, in what they call "their" country.

Pardon me if "moral, Jewish people" seems like an oxymoron, given their behavior toward Africans and Palestinians over all these years.  And the fact, that the Changeling "is grateful" for Shimon's "life's work" and "moral example" speaks volumes--or it should.

He goes on to say:

This isn’t just about numbers on a balance sheet. As a senator, I spoke to Israeli troops on the Lebanese border. I visited with families who’ve known the terror of rocket fire in Sderot. And that’s why, as president, I have provided critical funding to deploy the Iron Dome system that has intercepted rockets that might have hit homes and hospitals and schools in that town and in others. Now our assistance is expanding Israel’s defensive capabilities, so that more Israelis can live free from the fear of rockets and ballistic missiles. Because no family, no citizen, should live in fear. (emphasis mine)

Unless they're African of course.

And just as we’ve been there with our security assistance, we’ve been there through our diplomacy. When the Goldstone report unfairly singled out Israel for criticism, we challenged it. When Israel was isolated in the aftermath of the flotilla incident, we supported them. When the Durban conference was commemorated, we boycotted it, and we will always reject the notion that Zionism is racism. (emphasis mine)

Speak for yourself, Man.  I'll let Dr. Clarke speak for me with the following:

From the 1:05 - 5:38 click/Part 2: "They have never, been our friends when we needed them.  And the concept of a historical alliance, between African people and people called Jews is a lie and a myth, and a misconception.  They overplayed every event in history when they came in contact with us.  Anytime it was to their benefit, they have walked away from us.  We are one, of the most politically naive people in history, we have never made a good alliance with anybody.  Everybody that has come among us, have shown, that they would betray us, anytime it was to their benefit.  There is no exception, right or left.  That's true of every religion, it's true of every politics.  And it's true of every, single, ethnic group.  Now you wanna play a whole lot of, ethnic-partner games; I think you should make alliance with other ethnic groups--but watch the alliance.  You should be partners, but when people break the alliance, you should be in a position to punish them.  And don't depend too much, on the alliance..."I'm tryin' to show you where we related to the humanity of all people, but all people have not related to our humanity." (emphasis his)

Israel's ongoing and unfettered abuse of Africans and Palestinians, along with those three emphasized incidents in that last excerpt from the Changeling's speech above (Goldstone, the attack on the flotilla and Durban)--all keep me singing: ♬ The wheels on the white supremacy bus go round and round...all through the world. ♬

And they will continue, unless and until, we take Dr. Clarke's intellectually astute advice and shed our political naiveté; coalesce with each other worldwide; make only mutually beneficial alliances (reserving the right to punish--in one way, or another--those who break them) and say our own...

(Took this  photo on Juffureh, during my first trip to The Gambia)

...and this time--mean it!

UPDATE:  Russell Simmons calls for truce with ADL's Foxman

I just read this piece on JewishJournal.com and when I was done, Dr. Clarke's, "We have illusions about people" statement at the 6:56 click in Part 2 of his videos immediately came to mind. Russell Simmons has, without a doubt, some serious illusions.

Simmons, a co-founder with Rabbi Marc Schneier of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, said that he was proud to have worked to strengthen the relationship between the African-American and Jewish communities. He said his comments at the conference were undermining the work he has done on behalf of the Jewish community to build synagogues and promote tolerance.

“Rabbi Marc Schneier and I had a remarkable week in Israel where we met and convened with some of the most important religious leaders in the country, including the Chief Rabbi of Israel and the Grand Mufti of the Palestinian people,” Simmons wrote. “We had difficult conversations that have not happened before, and we are determined to break through barriers that have been in existence for decades.”

Now if this isn't an excellent example of some of that political naiveté to which Dr. Clarke referred, I don't know what is.  Not only has he stepped in to "strengthen" this mythological alliance building synagogues with his "dolla', dolla' bills y'all" (they're not crazy, they know just who to target), they've got him apologizing for saying something that was almost true (I say almost, because I don't see any "leaders" in the Black community)!  You're just another shabbos goy, Russell.

And while Simmons boasts about his "remarkable week," meeting and convening with the Chief Rabbi and Grand Mufti--I wonder, did he stop to meet-and-greet any of those Black-like-him Africans being attacked, rounded up like cattle and deported?  Oh, and note to Russell:  Those barriers?  They've existed for way more than decades--use some of that cash you've got to buy a damned clue. (smdh)



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