This post's title comes from a wonderful article by Israeli Nobel Peace Prize candidate Jeff Halper. He proposes a thought-provoking analogy between Gandhi's non-cooperation movement in colonial India and the Palestinian people's election of the non-cooperating Hamas.
According to my Internet search, only a single newspaper in the world -- The Toronto Star -- has dared to publish this article.
March 27, 2006
March 25, 2006
Pacifism vs Imperialism
The saga of the four Christian peace activists taken hostage by the Iraqi Resistance several months ago, one of whom was killed by the captors, and three of whom were recently “rescued” by “coalition” forces under highly suspicious and mysterious circumstances, is a study in the interconnections and the complicity between imperialist propaganda and media distortions.
The media expect the former captives to be grateful to the “coalition” forces. What, exactly, are they to be grateful for? Are they supposed to be grateful to the ultimate causes and creators of their suffering, not to speak of the suffering of millions of Iraqis?
The media have offered a false paradox: Opponents of war have been freed by soldiers. But there is no paradox here. As long as there are wars, there will be active opponents of war, who themselves are more likely than the average non-participant to become a victim of war. Hence providing an opportunity for the warmongers to “rescue” them and try to justify the unjustifiable. Had there been no war on Iraq, would any of this have happened?
The peace activists have been urged to thank their “rescuers.” Rather, it should be the “rescuers” who should apologize to the former hostages for having made it necessary for them to place themselves in such a highly dangerous situation, for having endured months of captivity, and for being forced to waste so much energy opposing a worthless war which is a tissue of mendacity and falsehood.
Ultimately, it is the newsmedia who should be apologizing for having perverted the meaning of the four’s mission of peace into a justification for war.
• My other posts on related topics:
The silver lining... Sweet fruits of deception
Wiped out...
"Democracy in Action"
Boundless Arrogance II
What do you care?
Unity, progress, and purpose
The Poodle's UNcle
Intolerance masquerades as tolerance
Truth as a higher degree of deception
Myth and Myth-take (with Update)
McCain's License to Torture?
Commandress in Chief
Opportunism, thy name is Dubya!
The media expect the former captives to be grateful to the “coalition” forces. What, exactly, are they to be grateful for? Are they supposed to be grateful to the ultimate causes and creators of their suffering, not to speak of the suffering of millions of Iraqis?
The media have offered a false paradox: Opponents of war have been freed by soldiers. But there is no paradox here. As long as there are wars, there will be active opponents of war, who themselves are more likely than the average non-participant to become a victim of war. Hence providing an opportunity for the warmongers to “rescue” them and try to justify the unjustifiable. Had there been no war on Iraq, would any of this have happened?
The peace activists have been urged to thank their “rescuers.” Rather, it should be the “rescuers” who should apologize to the former hostages for having made it necessary for them to place themselves in such a highly dangerous situation, for having endured months of captivity, and for being forced to waste so much energy opposing a worthless war which is a tissue of mendacity and falsehood.
Ultimately, it is the newsmedia who should be apologizing for having perverted the meaning of the four’s mission of peace into a justification for war.
• My other posts on related topics:
The silver lining... Sweet fruits of deception
Wiped out...
"Democracy in Action"
Boundless Arrogance II
What do you care?
Unity, progress, and purpose
The Poodle's UNcle
Intolerance masquerades as tolerance
Truth as a higher degree of deception
Myth and Myth-take (with Update)
McCain's License to Torture?
Commandress in Chief
Opportunism, thy name is Dubya!
March 21, 2006
Real friends of Palestinians
From a letter I sent to a local newspaper:
Re: Editorial: Palestinian Anarchy
The editorial accuses Palestinians of wanting to turn themselves into pariahs for electing Hamas. What Palestinians have actually done has been to exercise their democratic right to choose the government that they feel best represents their interests. I don’t recall The Star accusing Americans of wanting to turn themselves into pariahs by electing and then re-electing someone like George W. Bush.
As further evidence that Palestinians enjoy the pariah status, you claim that their brief detention of 11 foreign aid workers after Israel’s criminal raid on the Jericho prison proves they don’t favour their friends over their foes. Thus implying, apparently, that Hamas is their foe.
Incidentally, had a representative of an international organization been held hostage by a hypothetical Canadian militant group (as, in a sense, actually happened with the FLQ abduction of James Cross in 1970), would The Star have accused all Canadians of wanting to turn themselves into pariahs, and not knowing their friends from their enemies?
The Palestinian people’s friends are those who understand their plight. That includes many of those same foreign workers, such as the released Canadian detainee Adam Budzanowski, who are working among them, and who understand the risks that they take by working among a highly oppressed and abandoned nation. That is why Mr Budzanowski has decided to remain in Palestine to continue his work.
Hamas is also a friend of the Palestinian people, because it understands that without justice there will be no peace. To Palestinians, Hamas represents exactly that justice. Hamas represents the demand for full withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories. Nothing less, and nothing more. No other influential group within Palestine, and no Western nation, is willing to make that demand an absolute condition for peace.
• My other posts on related topics:
The silver lining... Sweet fruits of deception
Wiped out...
"Democracy in Action"
New Age Zionists
Myth and Myth-take (with Update)
Unity, progress, and purpose
Re: Editorial: Palestinian Anarchy
The editorial accuses Palestinians of wanting to turn themselves into pariahs for electing Hamas. What Palestinians have actually done has been to exercise their democratic right to choose the government that they feel best represents their interests. I don’t recall The Star accusing Americans of wanting to turn themselves into pariahs by electing and then re-electing someone like George W. Bush.
As further evidence that Palestinians enjoy the pariah status, you claim that their brief detention of 11 foreign aid workers after Israel’s criminal raid on the Jericho prison proves they don’t favour their friends over their foes. Thus implying, apparently, that Hamas is their foe.
Incidentally, had a representative of an international organization been held hostage by a hypothetical Canadian militant group (as, in a sense, actually happened with the FLQ abduction of James Cross in 1970), would The Star have accused all Canadians of wanting to turn themselves into pariahs, and not knowing their friends from their enemies?
The Palestinian people’s friends are those who understand their plight. That includes many of those same foreign workers, such as the released Canadian detainee Adam Budzanowski, who are working among them, and who understand the risks that they take by working among a highly oppressed and abandoned nation. That is why Mr Budzanowski has decided to remain in Palestine to continue his work.
Hamas is also a friend of the Palestinian people, because it understands that without justice there will be no peace. To Palestinians, Hamas represents exactly that justice. Hamas represents the demand for full withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories. Nothing less, and nothing more. No other influential group within Palestine, and no Western nation, is willing to make that demand an absolute condition for peace.
• My other posts on related topics:
The silver lining... Sweet fruits of deception
Wiped out...
"Democracy in Action"
New Age Zionists
Myth and Myth-take (with Update)
Unity, progress, and purpose
March 16, 2006
Watch this...
...but only if you can stand the sight of Bill O'Reilly for as long as eight minutes. Ole Phil gives him a thrashing he won't soon forget: Video
March 11, 2006
The silver lining... Sweet fruits of deception
The sky is a little brighter today. It has been so dark, getting ever darker all the time, that we have almost forgotten what light looks like. We have even become accustomed to think of ourselves as moles, hopelessly and helplessly burrowing ever deeper into the dark abyss, hoping that turning away from reality would save us from the knowledge – the dark awareness – of the engulfing gloom.
Blinded by the darkness that has been, in a way, of our own making, we have failed to perceive the constellations and patterns of the positive side-effects of Bush’s complete reduction of politics to the art of lying and crime. We have been so busy grieving over Bush’s lies and crimes that we have almost forgotten our older grief, the one over the mendacity and criminality that are the essence of the system.
Lo and behold, the fog is lifting, in more than one place and in more than one way.
We have always thought of politics as a dirty game. We have thought of politicians as amoral individuals whose mendacity was only restrained by their sense of the expedient, whose amorality was controlled by their pragmatism. Even so, an all-encompassing world of lies and crime presupposed that truth and morality existed – if not here, at least somewhere, if not now, at least sometime.
The Bush Administration’s quite open abandonment of truth and morality has awakened people to the systemic nature of mendacity and crime. It has awakened a new thoroughgoing critical attitude towards the socioeconomic system of capitalism and the political system of imperialism. People have begun to realize that the system is false through and through.
Many recent events have helped reveal the actual nature of many phenomena hitherto obscured by ideological fogs of imperialism and capitalism. People have become more willing to call a spade a spade, and to see a lie for what it is, without resorting to euphemisms such as “misrepresentation” or “mistaken judgement.”
Just to concentrate on the Middle East:
Zionism has been revealed as an integral part of the battle against Moslem peoples, rather than just a local nuisance for Palestinians. It is becoming ever clearer that the Holocaust was used as an excuse to establish the Zionist state. Had there been no Holocaust or Jewish persecution, some other entity, by this name or some other name, would in any case have been installed in the region to facilitate imperialist destabilization and domination of the region.
It has become clear that Israel has no intention of ever leaving the occupied territories, a fact that has led to Hamas’ election. Hamas is the Palestinian equivalent and counterpart of the absolute intransigence on the part of Israel.
It is becoming ever more obvious that the Iraqi “government” is not a bunch of “democrats” trying to make the best of a bad situation, but rather collaborators with the occupying power, pure and simple. Their project is merely to facilitate the occupier’s plans.
Had the American project in the Middle East had anything to do with spreading democracy, it would not have been such a steadfast enemy of the only two democratically-elected Moslem governments in the region - Iran and the Palestinian Authority. The puppet Iraqi government is not democratic. The war on Iraq was merely a manifestation of the long-term neo-colonial project of destabilization and control of the region. In that sense, it has been a great success.
Writers such as Salman Rushdie and Irshad Manji have been exposed as enemies of Moslem peoples, rather than as advocates of freedom of expression and “progressive Islam.”
Most importantly, the Islamic resurgence of the last few decades has been revealed as a political movement against imperialism, rather than an atavistic pathology.
• My other posts on related topics:
Myth and Myth-take (with Update)
The Poodle's UNcle
Wiped out...
"Democracy in Action"
Boundless Arrogance II
What do you care?
Unity, progress, and purpose
New Age Zionists
Intolerance masquerades as tolerance
Truth as a higher degree of deception
McCain's License to Torture?
Commandress in Chief
Opportunism, thy name is Dubya!
Blinded by the darkness that has been, in a way, of our own making, we have failed to perceive the constellations and patterns of the positive side-effects of Bush’s complete reduction of politics to the art of lying and crime. We have been so busy grieving over Bush’s lies and crimes that we have almost forgotten our older grief, the one over the mendacity and criminality that are the essence of the system.
Lo and behold, the fog is lifting, in more than one place and in more than one way.
We have always thought of politics as a dirty game. We have thought of politicians as amoral individuals whose mendacity was only restrained by their sense of the expedient, whose amorality was controlled by their pragmatism. Even so, an all-encompassing world of lies and crime presupposed that truth and morality existed – if not here, at least somewhere, if not now, at least sometime.
The Bush Administration’s quite open abandonment of truth and morality has awakened people to the systemic nature of mendacity and crime. It has awakened a new thoroughgoing critical attitude towards the socioeconomic system of capitalism and the political system of imperialism. People have begun to realize that the system is false through and through.
Many recent events have helped reveal the actual nature of many phenomena hitherto obscured by ideological fogs of imperialism and capitalism. People have become more willing to call a spade a spade, and to see a lie for what it is, without resorting to euphemisms such as “misrepresentation” or “mistaken judgement.”
Just to concentrate on the Middle East:
Zionism has been revealed as an integral part of the battle against Moslem peoples, rather than just a local nuisance for Palestinians. It is becoming ever clearer that the Holocaust was used as an excuse to establish the Zionist state. Had there been no Holocaust or Jewish persecution, some other entity, by this name or some other name, would in any case have been installed in the region to facilitate imperialist destabilization and domination of the region.
It has become clear that Israel has no intention of ever leaving the occupied territories, a fact that has led to Hamas’ election. Hamas is the Palestinian equivalent and counterpart of the absolute intransigence on the part of Israel.
It is becoming ever more obvious that the Iraqi “government” is not a bunch of “democrats” trying to make the best of a bad situation, but rather collaborators with the occupying power, pure and simple. Their project is merely to facilitate the occupier’s plans.
Had the American project in the Middle East had anything to do with spreading democracy, it would not have been such a steadfast enemy of the only two democratically-elected Moslem governments in the region - Iran and the Palestinian Authority. The puppet Iraqi government is not democratic. The war on Iraq was merely a manifestation of the long-term neo-colonial project of destabilization and control of the region. In that sense, it has been a great success.
Writers such as Salman Rushdie and Irshad Manji have been exposed as enemies of Moslem peoples, rather than as advocates of freedom of expression and “progressive Islam.”
Most importantly, the Islamic resurgence of the last few decades has been revealed as a political movement against imperialism, rather than an atavistic pathology.
• My other posts on related topics:
Myth and Myth-take (with Update)
The Poodle's UNcle
Wiped out...
"Democracy in Action"
Boundless Arrogance II
What do you care?
Unity, progress, and purpose
New Age Zionists
Intolerance masquerades as tolerance
Truth as a higher degree of deception
McCain's License to Torture?
Commandress in Chief
Opportunism, thy name is Dubya!
March 03, 2006
Moloch
People have tried to figure out why Bush seems so uncaring about the death and suffering he has caused in Iraq. I think it is actually very simple. The thing about Bush is that he believes everyone's life is as miserable, destructive, and meaningless as his own. He thinks a lot of people are better off dead.
That is why the tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and the thousands of American lives that he has extinguished mean nothing to him. Bush saves people, especially young people, from life! His victims find eternal meaning by making "the ultimate sacrifice"!
He is Moloch, the god-king in whose name children were sacrificed on a pyre to make them "immortal." "Moloch finds particular pleasure in making mothers weep; for he specializes in stealing their children."
That is why the tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and the thousands of American lives that he has extinguished mean nothing to him. Bush saves people, especially young people, from life! His victims find eternal meaning by making "the ultimate sacrifice"!
He is Moloch, the god-king in whose name children were sacrificed on a pyre to make them "immortal." "Moloch finds particular pleasure in making mothers weep; for he specializes in stealing their children."
March 01, 2006
What will it take to dump Dubya?
Dubya’s popularity, according to the latest poll, stands at 34 percent. Considering that he got 47 percent of the vote a little over a year ago, his popularity has dropped by only about 13 percent during the intervening period.*
All the unprecedented domestic and international disasters of those 14 months have convinced only an additional 13 percent of the American population that this man was never meant to be the leader of anything, much less the leader of the most powerful military power in the world! What will it take to convince the remaining 34 percent?
This is not a rhetorical question. I am really curious to know...
* I am being generous, by the way, with that "47 percent" figure. The real figure, considering all the fraud that went on in Ohio and elsewhere, was probably more like 45 percent, or even lower.
All the unprecedented domestic and international disasters of those 14 months have convinced only an additional 13 percent of the American population that this man was never meant to be the leader of anything, much less the leader of the most powerful military power in the world! What will it take to convince the remaining 34 percent?
This is not a rhetorical question. I am really curious to know...
* I am being generous, by the way, with that "47 percent" figure. The real figure, considering all the fraud that went on in Ohio and elsewhere, was probably more like 45 percent, or even lower.
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