Progressive Calendar 08.09.08
From: David Shove (shove001tc.umn.edu)
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2008 05:28:01 -0700 (PDT)
             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R    08.09.08

1. Peace walk        8.09 9am Cambridge MN
2. RNC/war           8.09 10am
3. War made easy/f   8.09 10:30am
4. Nagasaki          8.09 10:30am
5. NWN4P Mtka        8.09 11am
6. Poor people       8.09 11am
7. Pancakes/benefit  8.09 11am
8. Garden tour       8.09 1pm
9. Sudman/Iraq       8.09 1:30pm
10. Northtown vigil  8.09 2pm
11. Nagasaki         8.09 7pm Duluth MN

12. Stillwater vigil 8.10 1pm
13. Health/RNC/AM950 8.10 3pm
14. Vets for peace   8.10 6pm
15. KFAI/Indian      8.10 7pm

16. Manuel Garcia - On voting: a ritual of justifying biases
17. M Shahid Alam - The Zionist way: dispossession, expansion & paranoia
18. David Model   - Instant genocide: the legacy of Hiroshima & Nagasaki
19. Naomi Klein   - The Olympics: unveiling police state 2.0

--------1 of 19--------

From: Ken Reine <reine008 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Peace walk 8.09 9am Cambridge MN

every Saturday 9AM to 9:35AM
Peace walk in Cambridge - start at Hwy 95 and Fern Street


--------2 of 19--------

From: "wamm [at] mtn.org" <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: RNC/war 8.09 10am

March on the RNC and Stop the War

August 9 and 10, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. 1313 5th
Street Southeast, Room 112c (Old Marshall High School in Dinkytown),
Minneapolis. Volunteer to help spread the word about the upcoming March on
the RNC and Stop the War. FFI and to Volunteer: Call Sarah, 612-379-4716.


--------3 of 19--------

From: "wamm [at] mtn.org" <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: War made easy/f 8.09 10:30am

Documentary: "War Made Easy"
Saturday August 9, 10:30 a.m. Riverview Theater, 3800 42nd Avenue South,
Minneapolis.

"War Made Easy," the critically acclaimed documentary movie produced by
the Media Education Foundation, narrated by Sean Penn and featuring Norman
Soloman will begin a kickoff promotion for the non-partisan, non-profit
"Peace Island Picnic" (one of the "UnConvention" projects being organized
for September 4th on Harriet Island by Coleen and Ross Rowley). "War Made
Easy" provides unique insights about the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq,
setting government spin and media collusion from the present alongside
virtually identical patterns from the past.


--------4 of 19--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Nagasaki 8.09 10:30am

Saturday, 8/9, 10:30 am, Nagasiki commemoration including moment of
silence at 11:02 am, the time of the bomb dropping), Global Harmony
Labyrinth, Como Park, St Paul.  (Labyrinth is located near the south end
of the pedestrian bridge.)  http://www.wilpfmn.org/hn/ or JoAnn at
msphncc [at] gmail.com or 952-922-0308.


--------5 of 19--------

From: Carole Rydberg <carydberg [at] comcast.net>
Subject: NWN4P Mtka 8.09 11am

NWN4P-Minnetonka demonstration- Every Saturday, 11 AM to noon, at Hwy. 7
and 101.  Park in the Target Greatland lot; meet near the fountain. We
will walk along the public sidewalk. Signs available.


--------6 of 19--------

From: Erin Parrish <erin [at] mnwomen.org>
Subject: Poor people 8.09 11am

Saturday, August 9: Welfare Rights Committee invites all to come to a
Celebration to get involved in organizing and planning the poor people's
contingent. 11 AM - 1 PM at Sibley Park Community Center, Cedar Ave & 40th
St E.

Free rides, food and child care. This event is in preparation for their
march on the RNC. They are asking all low income people to join the Poor
Peoples Contingent in the Republican National Convention on September 1,
2008 and support the slogan "Money For Human Needs, Not for War!"


--------7 of 19--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Pancakes/benefit 8.09 11am

EWOK! presents a VEGAN PANCAKE BREAKFAST!
THIS SATURDAY, AUGUST 9TH!
@ THE TOAST SALOON
3221 ELLIOT AVE S.
11 AM

suggested donations: 5-15$$ no one will be turned away for lack of funds
all proceeds will go to JOYANNA ZACHER and NATHAN BLOCK (Sadie and Exile),
eco-prisoners and victims of the green scare there will be coffee and tea
and all-you- can- eat pancakes, and good company!!!


--------8 of 19--------

From: Giving Tree Gardens <Giving_Tree_Gardens [at] mail.vresp.com>
Subject: Garden tour 8.09 1pm

Once again, Giving Tree Gardens will be offering a tour of its
award-winning gardens at the Seward Co-Op. Join Russ Henry, of Giving Tree
Gardens, on Saturday, Aug. 9, at 1 p.m. at the co-op gardens in front of
the store (in the event of rain, the tour will be rescheduled for Sunday,
Aug. 10, at 1 p.m.).

Russ will discuss organic gardening practices, soil health, garden
maintenance and composting, so bring your gardening-related questions.
After we tour the co-op gardens Russ will also walk down a couple blocks
with interested folks to one of his latest garden projects on historic
Milwaukee Avenue!


--------9 of 19--------

From: sudman [at] aol.com
Subject: Sudman/Iraq 8.09 1:30pm

FNVW 8/9 SPEAKER EVENT:
LIFE IN IRAQ: ONE PERSPECTIVE

Saturday, Aug. 9, 1:30pm at Friends for a Non-Violent World, 1050 Selby
Av, St. Paul 55104 Natalie Sudman, artist and writer, and sister of FNVW
member Sharon Sudman, works for the Army Corps of Engineers and was
stationed in Iraq as a reconstruction engineer for 15 months. Wounded in
an EFP attack last Thanksgiving, she is now traveling and telling her
story.

This will be an interactive presentation with photos of life on and off
the base, and a generous Q&A. This is not an anti-war presentation, but an
objective view from someone in a position to reveal much detail about
occupation and reconstruction in southern Iraq. At FNVW, 1050 Selby, St.
Paul, please RSVP to info [at] fnvw.org or call 651-917-0383. Presentation
limited to 35.


--------10 of 19--------

From: Vanka485 [at] aol.com
Subject: Northtown vigil 8.09 2pm

Peace vigil at Northtown (Old Hwy 10 & University Av), every Saturday
2-3pm


--------11 of 19--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Nagasaki 8.09 7pm Duluth MN

Saturday, 8/9, 7 pm, remembering, mourning and repenting the destruction
of the US bombing of Nagasaki, Peace UCC Church, 1111 N 11th St, Duluth.
earthmannow [at] gmail.com or http://www.wnpj.org


--------12 of 19--------

From: scot b <earthmannow [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Stillwater vigil 8.10 1pm

A weekly Vigil for Peace Every Sunday, at the Stillwater bridge from 1- 2
p.m.  Come after Church or after brunch ! All are invited to join in song
and witness to the human desire for peace in our world. Signs need to be
positive.  Sponsored by the St. Croix Valley Peacemakers.

If you have a United Nations flag or a United States flag please bring it.
Be sure to dress for the weather . For more information go to
<http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/>http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/

For more information you could call 651 275 0247 or 651 999 - 9560


--------13 of 19--------

From: James Mayer <jmayer [at] academymayer.com>
Subject: Health/RNC/AM950 8.10 3pm

Of the People: This Sunday, August 10th at 3 p.m. on AM 950--Air America
Minnesota's new name; call letters: ktnf--with Host James Mayer. "

"What do we want?"  "When do we want it?"  Do those repeated shouts to
demonstrators take you back to some of the protests and marches in other
times of crisis?  Protests and demonstrations will have an important role
along with all the other tools of democracy in the remaining weeks of
August leading to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul and
Minneapolis from the 1st to the 4th of September.  One response to those
questions from a large and growing number of people would be "Health care
for all of us!" and "Now!"

To discuss this with us this Sunday, we welcome back health economist and
Pharmacist Dr. Joel Albers, with the Minnesota Chapter of Universal Health
Care Action Network, UHCAN-Minnesota.  Among other things, he will share
insights learned from protesting the previous three Republican National
Conventions, and several other national protests on how Health Care
activists can join forces with others to counter the attitude that John
McCain shares other Republican National Convention (RNC) delegates. He
will also discuss with our listeners the disconnect between health care
positions of some candidates in the upcoming elections and what the public
wants.


--------14 of 19--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Vets for peace 8.10 6pm

Sunday, 8/10, 6 to 8:30 pm, Veterans for Peace chapter 27 meets, St
Stephens Church, 2123 Clinton Ave S, Mpls.  (Ring bell on north door.)
John Varone 952-2665.


--------15 of 19--------

From: Chris Spotted Eagle <chris [at] spottedeagle.org>
Subject: KFAI/Indian 8.10 7pm

KFAI's Indian Uprising, August 10, 2008 from 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. CDT #277

The Garden Warriors Apprenticeship Program is an environmental education
project of the Dream of Wild Health Program for urban American Indian youth,
ages 13-17, who participate in a four-week, paid apprenticeship. Each year,
more than 30 Native youth learn about healthy nutrition and the prevention
of diabetes and obesity, organic farming, cultural heritage, basic job
skills, and leadership.

Dream of Wild Health is a program of Peta Wakan Tipi (Lakota for Sacred Fire
Lodge), Inc. DWH also offers a program for Native youth, ages 8-12, that
teaches diabetes and obesity prevention, along with their cultural heritage
and organic farming. DWH was created in 1998 to bring traditional Native
plants--and their culinary, medicinal and spiritual uses--to clients in
recovery and the broader American Indian community. Located on 10-acres in
Hugo, Minnesota, DWH has preserved a large collection of indigenous heirloom
seeds, grows a wide variety of organic produce, and provides educational and
cultural programs for kids and adults.

Peta Wakan Tipi is one of Minnesotašs oldest American Indian-established and
run nonprofit organizations, having provided culturally appropriate housing
and support services for recovering American Indian people in the Twin
Cities since 1986. ­ www.petawakantipi.org

Ernie Whiteman (Northern Arapaho), Cultural Director, Garden Warriors
Apprenticeship Program.

GWAP Students
* * * *
Indian Uprising is a KFAI Public & Cultural Affairs program relevant to
Native Indigenous people, broadcast each Sunday on 90.3 FM Minneapolis and
106.7 FM St. Paul. Volunteer producer & host is Chris Spotted Eagle.

For internet listening, visit www.kfai.org, click Play under ON AIR NOW or
for listening later via their archives, click PROGRAMS & SCHEDULE > Indian
Uprising > STREAM.  Programs are archived for two weeks.


--------16 of 19--------

A Ritual of Justifying Biases
On Voting
By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr.
CounterPunch
August 8, 2008

The brain is a food-seeking antenna at the service of the stomach, the
controlling organ of the body. To understand this is to be free of the
delusion that we humans are rational beings who observe to gather data for
analysis, analyze to formulate plans and arrive at decisions, and then
employ our physical selves and our exosomatic mechanisms to enact these
plans and decisions. Instead, we decide emotionally and largely
unconsciously, generally on the basis of fear and prejudice, and we use
our brains to fabricate post-facto rationalizations for our biases and
predetermined actions. Some may feel this characterization of human
motivation is unjustly insulting to human dignity, and severely dismissive
of human intellect. I concede that it will not be universally applicable,
but I think it sufficiently representative to help explain many social
trends and popular attitudes. Let us consider attitudes about voting in
the 2008 US presidential election.

All the ballots will list many presidential candidates, but we can group
these into three categories based on political party: Democratic,
Republican, minor party and independent candidates.

The Democratic and Republican parties are the official political
organizations of the military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC).
They prosecute the interests of US capitalism's ownership class by
managing the dollar-area empire, both parties vying for each four-year
contract to operate the national government. These two parties are called
"the major parties" because they share a joint control of the political
apparatus, extending to all three branches of government: executive,
judicial and legislative. The relative proportions of managerial power
allotted quadrennially to the major parties reflects the consensus of
political opinion among the many constituencies making up the MICC
(adjustments may occur through mid-term elections). It is important to
remember that the domestic component of MICC capitalism is economic class
warfare, capital's unrelenting attack on the working class ("labor," "wage
earners," or most accurately "wage slaves"), and the foreign component is
imperialism by militarized dollar-area economics (see my previous article,
"Oiling The War Machine" http://www.counterpunch.org/garcia07112008.html).

Voting for a major party candidate is an endorsement of MICC capitalism,
both in its domestic assaults on popular democracy and the working class,
and in its imperialistic aggression. Expressing a preference for a
Democratic or Republican candidate is accepting MICC capitalism with an
endorsement of one of its two proposed management styles. The major
parties have been called collectively a "duopoly."

It is delusional to imagine that, once in office, a charismatic or
maverick presidential candidate from a major party would betray the class
interests of his or her patrons - the MICC sustaining this political
career - to advance a popular working class aspiration, in other words to
reverse the course of the class war. On the other hand, it is certain that
those the MICC advances to the presidential competition will be adept at
convincing much of the public (in the proletariat) that a populist bond of
shared aspiration does indeed exist between them. The MICC prizes
Individuals capable of this feat because they are more effective at social
control by the leading of public opinion. This projection of illusion,
basically a lie, is called "identity politics." Vanity leads many
presidential contenders to overestimate their capabilities in this area,
and the primary elections are intended to weed them out.

The third category of presidential candidates is that of independent and
minor party candidates. We eliminate from further discussion the frivolous
and delusional candidacies appearing on any ballot. There remain numerous
individuals leading a wide variety of political parties with little if any
actual political power, and independent candidates with some substantive
platform. The three minor parties of most significance are the
Constitution Party (paleoconservative, or authoritarian capitalist), the
Green Party (center-left populist) and the Libertarian Party
(anti-authoritarian capitalist). Two notable independent candidates today
are Ralph Nader (a long-time and effective advocate for economic justice),
running for US president, and Cindy Sheehan (today's best-known US
anti-war activist), running for California's 8th congressional district
seat in the US House of Representatives.

Honest minor party and independent candidates (we exclude the dishonest
careerists from further consideration) seek to have their platforms of
ideas widely accepted, whether or not they themselves advance to
leadership roles by riding on the hypothetical flood tide of social
transformation they advocate. Voting for a minor party or independent
candidate is an endorsement of their platform. Since the US American
empire is a hierarchy of greed managed by patronage, the only way to
register your preference for a different model of national organization,
through the electoral process, is to vote for an anti-imperialist or
socialist minor party or independent candidate. In doing this you add to
the popularity of the party or organization advocating the platform you
support, and that organization may then reach the stature necessary in the
U.S. to receive public funding. A vote for a minor party or independent
candidate is a vote to "build the party" that carries the message, the
platform, you believe in. In choosing to vote this way you choose to
forsake registering an opinion on which of two styles of empire management
is preferable.

So, you have three choices: 1, vote for the empire led by John McCain with
a lumbering regressive politics; 2, vote for the empire led by Barack
Obama with sophisticated regressive politics; 3, vote against the empire.

There are many minor parties and independent candidates, and the array
spans the political spectrum. Some are anti-imperialist and/or
democratic-socialist, and it is the combination of these that I indicate
in choice 3. For completeness I should add choice 4: one could probably
find and vote for minor parties unopposed to empire, and with narrow
ideological, issue or regional focus. Applying a leftist bias, I discount
this fourth choice.

We already know the most important outcome of the 2008 election, the
headline could read: "Americans Overwhelmingly Endorse Empire!" Why?
Because too many voters have internalized the indoctrination that
instructs them to measure the efficacy of their elected representatives by
the quantity of pork barrel slopped their way. It's all about the money.
Everybody wants their local federal grant, or highway repair, or school
building fund in exchange for their vote; every politician wants those
votes, as well as his or her campaign funds; and every capitalist wants
political and regulatory favors in exchange for those campaign funds. The
Duoploy continues not only because it can manipulate the apparatus of
government to prevent parliamentary democracy, but because much of the
public does not want to lose its share of the pork barrel occasionally
cracked open for it, by shifting its allegiance to minor parties and
independent candidates.

We voters make our electoral choices on the basis of biases that are
rarely as dispassionate and principled as we declare. Racism is one
obvious factor influencing electoral choices in the U.S. If we view bias
as "thinking with your stomach," or "gut feel," then we can ask: what is
any voter's bias? A US industry revolves around this question.

Each individual's dominant motivation will often combine the avoidance of
their fears, which can involve prejudices and superstitions few admit
openly today, and the grasping for objects (including money), status
(self-esteem) and relationships that are idealized as desirable. People
dominated by the grasping for wealth, and prone to xenophobia, will easily
find that the Republican Party speaks for them. People dominated by a
desire for protection against both impersonal natural forces and socially
callous authoritarian, bureaucratic and capitalist organizations are more
likely to be drawn to the Democratic Party. These are broad
generalizations offered as suggestive, not exhaustive, descriptions.

Some portion of a voter's preference will be based on the personal
attributes of a candidate: race, military veteran status, age, ethnicity,
assumed state of health, assumed sexual proclivities; and another portion
of the preference will be based on the assumed benefits to be had with the
victory of one or another party as regards: the personal pocketbook, the
social impact, potential policy changes in an area of personal interest,
pork barrel. "What's in it for me?" So, after people vote in hopes of
lowering their taxes, sheltering their capital gains, closing out
undesirable populations from their comfortable neighborhood enclaves, or
from the entire country, gaining advantages from foreign laborers cheaply,
subsidizing their private liabilities at public expense, initiating new
wars they anticipate profiting from, and in many other ways gaining
exclusive preferences and subsidies, and giving free rein to their
prejudices, they may seek sympathetic characterizations of their voting
rationales because uttering the unvarnished truth would be too
embarrassing.

We can surmise that most eligible voters, and many ineligible ones,
already know how they would vote in November 2008, their major uncertainty
is how to describe why they voted as they will, while maintaining the
appearances that matter to them. Justifying a vote for McCain or against
empire is trivial, raw capitalism and white power prefer the former,
revolution the latter. More nuanced justifications are needed by Obama
voters. Perhaps the simplest and sincerest justification would be a desire
to elect an Afro-American president. Others could claim they are
Democratic Party loyalists, hence automatic voters for Obama. This is an
elastic rationale which can be conveniently stretched to cover over both
ideological and pork barrel affinities. The most elaborate justifications
would have to be by leftists and progressives, people who see themselves
as anti-imperialists, who plan to vote for Obama as a way to vote against
the McCain continuation of Bush-Cheneyism, thus of necessity casting
ballots in favor of the empire. This conflict between self-image and
political reality - Obama is an imperialist - has been oozing through
its cocoon of denial in published commentaries that admit to "disillusion"
and complain about Obama's "shift to the right." Obama hasn't changed, but
for people who can't yet face up to the fact that they deluded themselves,
it is easier to ascribe the evaporation of their illusions to an
undesirable shift in Obama's political stance.

In fairness to the reader, let me state that my own bias is for an
anti-imperial, anti-capitalist, socialist model of national organization.
I do not expect most citizens of the United States to arrive at this
conclusion in the foreseeable future. Given this view, it is illogical for
me to vote for either John McCain or Barack Obama. With either one I get
more war, and I will never again vote for war. Ralph Nader is my logical
choice for president because he advocates what I want (Cindy Sheehan would
be my choice for congress if I lived in Nancy Pelosi's district).

Objectively, I realize that Ralph Nader will not win the election. So, is
my vote wasted? Since it is my vote and I prefer to apply it to the
support of the people who carry on the platform of ideas I would wish this
nation to adopt, no. I understand how presumptuous Democrats may wish to
commandeer my vote, with the excuse that as a leftist I should be a
captive of their party, and vote for O'Clinton to spite McBush. They will
wail that my vote for Nader is a wasted vote, perhaps even contributing to
a Republican victory. But, I repeat, I will never again vote for war, and
I will never again endorse the empire. I don't care if I'm the only person
in the country who votes against the empire. That will never be a wasted
vote. "I'd rather vote for what I want and not get it, than vote for what
I don't want and get lots of it."

If I can do this, then so can you, and so could a majority of US voters,
once they wake up.

Manuel Garcia, Jr. is a retired physicist. E-mail = mango [at] idiom.com


--------17 of 19--------

Dispossession, Expansion and Paranoia
The Zionist Stratagem
By M. SHAHID ALAM
CounterPunch
August 8, 2008

"Anti-Semitism has grown and continues to grow, and so do I".
  Theodore Herzl [1]

As a self-defined movement for the national "liberation" of European Jews,
Zionism had an anomalous relationship with its perennial Other, the
Gentile nations, from whom it wanted the Jews to secede and become a
distinct nation under a Jewish state.

The Zionists did not define Europe's Gentile nations as the adversary they
would have to oppose, and against whom they would struggle, to secure the
rights of Jews to emerge as a distinct nation.

On the contrary, the Zionists would harness the strength of their
perennial Other - their adversary - to gain their nationalist objective.
Unlike nationalists who secede from a state or empire by drawing new
borders, the Zionists did not demand any European territory; they planned
to establish their Jewish state outside the borders of Europe.

In other words, the Zionists were offering to execute what any state
facing secessionist demands would have embraced quite avidly: the Jewish
"secessionists" would sail away from Europe and establish their state in
the Middle East, well-removed from Europe.

This was a novel approach to national liberation.

As a first step, the Zionists proposed to liberate Jews from European
persecution by arranging for their exodus from Europe. This had always
been the dream of European anti-Semites: to cleanse their landscape of
Jewish presence. Over the past thousand years, different states in Europe
had periodically attempted this voiding of Jews through forced
conversions, pogroms, expulsions, and segregating Jews from Gentiles.

The Zionists were now proposing to purge Europe of its Jews on a scale
never attempted before, and without the inconvenience of disturbing the
peace. It was a contract that Europe's anti-Semites would have difficulty
turning down. Indeed, the Zionists fully expected the anti-Semites to give
them whatever help they needed to effect the Jewish exodus.

The Zionists were counting on this help; it was indispensable for the
completion of their project. The second step in the Zionist plan was to
seize control of Palestine, open it up to Jewish colonization, and, when
the Jewish colons had gained sufficient demographic mass in Palestine,
they would convert it into a Jewish state, preferably without the natives.
The Zionists could not undertake this step without the help of European
powers.

This was a clever stratagem: quite original to Zionism.

The Zionists sought to convert an impossible nationalism - with little
prospect of ever achieving its goal inside Europe - into a
settler-colonial project. In addition, they would convert the Jews'
erstwhile adversaries into strategic partners. The Zionists expected to
persuade at least one European power to play the part of "mother country"
to the Jewish colons in Palestine.

It appeared that the Zionists were going to outperform Moses of Jewish
tradition. Moses too had chosen to liberate the Hebrews of ancient Egypt
by marching them out of Egypt into Canaan, where they would establish
their own state. There were important differences, however, between the
two plans.

The Zionists did not seek divine help, but they would receive help from
the anti-Semites. Moses had divine help but his plan was opposed by the
Egyptians. The Egyptians could not have agreed to Moses' long march
because he was running away with their property - their Hebrew slaves. In
Europe, on the other hand, the Jews owned considerable property - banks,
bank accounts, factories, houses, lands - that they would leave behind.

Clearly, the Zionists were offering the Europeans an attractive deal. Help
us create a Jewish settler-state in Palestine: and we will solve your
Jewish problem, free you from Jewish competition, free you of the Jewish
presence, and you can have all their property we leave behind. This Jewish
property was another gift the Zionists offered to Europe's anti-Semites.

To Europe's anti-Semites, the deal was irresistible. In fact, some of them
would think they could kill two birds with the Zionist stone. They would
get rid of the Jews, and renew the Crusades against the Muslims.

Of course, there were complications. States do not get into deals without
considering all the costs. The great powers with an interest in the Middle
East knew that backing the Zionist plan would mean war against the
Ottomans. It would also mean perpetual war against the Muslims, since this
was an egregious injustice against them and a deep violation of their
historical space. That is why the great powers balked.

It was World War I that changed the calculus. When the Ottomans joined the
war on the side of Germany, the Allied Powers - Britain, France and Russia
- decided to dismantle the Ottoman empire. Even then, there was little
interest in the Zionist plan - despite intense Zionist lobbying.

Two factors turned the tide in 1917. In Britain, a new cabinet had taken
office in December 1916 with at least five strongly pro-Zionist ministers,
including the prime minister, David Lloyd George. In addition, the war had
been going badly for the Allied Powers on the eastern and western fronts.

Now more than ever before, Zionist lobbying became a formidable force. The
Zionists lobbied Britain, Germany, and the US for their support of Zionist
goals. They made sure that their lobbying of one power was known to
others: thus forcing them to compete for the support which the Zionists
promised them in their war effort.

The Zionists promised to bring the US more fully into the war, to keep
Russia in the war, and to mobilize the resources of world Jewry on the
side of the power that would support their cause. It did not matter if the
Zionists could deliver these promises: the European leaders were convinced
they could.

At this point, all the pro-Zionist forces converged - anti-Semitism,
Christian Zionism, Crusader zeal, racism, national interests, and, above
all, Zionist lobbying - to place the power of the British empire behind
the Zionists.

By late October 1917, after many months of maneuvers, the Zionists and the
British finally agreed upon a statement that would signal British
commitment to Zionism. On November 2 1917, this statement was delivered by
Lord Balfour - British foreign secretary - in a letter to Lord Rothschild,
a distinguished leader of Britain's Jewish community.

This was the Balfour Declaration: this was the document that would
formalize a new - and for the most part, irreversible - partnership
between Western Jews and the West, joined, pitted, in expanding wars
against the Islamic world.

During the nineteenth century, when Britain and France competed to control
the land bridge of the Levant, each sought to lure the Jews into their
scheme to create a Jewish protectorate in Palestine. The Jews then quietly
rejected these overtures: they could sense that a Jewish state in
Palestine would be a trap.

Starting in 1897, when the European powers had lost interest in this
colonial scheme, it was the Zionists who revived it. Their hubris was so
great, they were willing to ignore the hazards of their plan. No doubt,
the Zionists did overcome these hazards: and their successes have been
stunning.

But Zionist successes have not helped to establish a political equilibrium
in the Middle East. On the contrary, they have been deeply destabilizing.
Zionist victories over existing foes produce new ones, harder to defeat
than those they replace.

Despite its military superiority, Israel feels paranoid. It seeks its
security in the total obliteration of its foes. It works round-the-clock
to strangulate the Palestinians, it has repeatedly unleashed destruction
against the Lebanese, it was the leading advocate of the war against Iraq.
And now it threatens to unleash a nuclear holocaust against Iran.

Most Zionists now believe that Israel is just another war away from
forging an absolute, irreversible "right to exist" - a code for the right
to exercise perpetual hegemony over the Middle East. Will the world grant
Israel this "right" if this last war turns Iran into a nuclear wasteland?
Will history forget or forgive this crime?

M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern University. He is
author of Challenging the New Orientalism (2007). Send comments to
alqalam02760 [at] yahoo.com.

Visit his website at: http://aslama.org. M. Shahid Alam.

Footnotes:
[1] David Hirst, The gun and the olive branch: The roots of violence in
the Middle East (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2003): 286.


--------18 of 19--------

The Legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Instant Genocide
By DAVID MODEL
CounterPunch
August 8, 2008

As we commemorate the deaths of those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
feelings will cover the gamut of emotions from remorse to anger.  I am
horrified by the events of August 6, 1945 and August 9, 1945 for several
reasons.  All the people who died were innocent civilians who were not
involved in the war.  As well, Japan was already defeated and was
desperately trying to surrender on any terms.  Then there is the evil in
humankind that can murder so many people just to demonstrate to your
post-war enemy, as a form of blackmail, that you have a powerful new
weapon.  In addition, careful study of the facts reveals that the U.S.
leadership was guilty of genocide for bombing these two cities.

It is important to realize that Japan was completely defeated by the time
the decision was made to drop the nuclear weapons.  As the allies marched
relentlessly toward mainland Japan, they crippled the Japanese war
machine.  In the battle of the Philippine Sea and Marianas, the Japanese
decided to throw everything they had at the American fleet in one final
desperate attempt to destroy the American Pacific Fleet.  Both the air and
naval battles were decisive as Japan lost 476 planes and two carriers.
Japan would never recover from the crippling blow to its air power.

As early as 1943, the U.S. was destroying unprotected merchant vessels
with attacks by submarines.  By the end of 1944, the U.S. had sunk half of
Japan's merchant fleet.  The loss of its merchant vessels had severely
diminished Japan's supply of natural resources, food, and oil, and by the
summer of 1945, American submarines had a choke hold on the traffic of
merchant vessels serving Japan.  The lack of incoming supplies was causing
starvation among the Japanese people.

To execute the coup de grace, the U.S. airforce fire-bombed Tokyo, Nagoya,
Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Kawasaki gutting over 40 percent of these urban
areas.  At this point in the war, Japan's cities had been severely
damaged, the industrial base virtually destroyed, the navy and airforce
rendered useless, and the people suffering from starvation.

One of the major issues to be considered was whether an invasion of Japan
would cost substantially less lives than dropping the bomb.  This is one
of the mythical justifications to support the use of nuclear weapons
because the President did not have any serious discussions with the
military about the potential loss of lives and in addition, most military
leaders rejected the use of the bombs.  For example, Fleet Admiral William
D. Leay, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that, "The use of
this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material
assistance in our war against Japan".

Japan had been sending out peace feelers to a number of embassies
including the ones in the Soviet Union, Portugal, and Germany.  The German
Ambassador to Tokyo sent a cable reporting that the Japanese would
surrender even if the terms were hard.  When the Potsdam Papers were
published four years after the war, it became very clear that Truman was
well aware of these peace feelers through intercepts of Japanese
communications.

Before assessing whether dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were
genocide, it is important to determine when a legitimate military action
crosses over the line into war crimes.  Given that the Japanese military
machine had been crushed, defense industries had been destroyed, major
cities had been fire-bombed, and the embargo was depriving the Japanese of
vital supplies in conjunction with the fact that the two bombed cities
were not in any sense military targets, it is safe to conclude that using
the bombs was not a legitimate action.

In Article ii of the Genocide Convention, it states that "Genocide means
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group such as: 1. Killing
members of the group".

The group in this case is a part of a national group, namely the Japanese
people.  There are many precedents to show that the "in part" in this case
meets the criteria of the Convention.  For example, the International
Criminal for the former Yugoslavia concluded that "The killing of members
of part of a group as such located in this small geographical area".

To prove intent, it is only necessary to show that Truman knew that Japan
was defeated and was desperately seeking to surrender and at the same
time, he did not consult his military commanders.  He also postponed the
Potsdam meeting, much to Churchill's chagrin, until after the bomb was
successfully tested.

The bombing of these two Japanese cities meets the criteria of the
Genocide Convention and therefore constitutes genocide.  It was a
horrific, unconscionable act that stands as the first use of a weapon
capable of destroying life on this planet and as an example of the depths
of evil to which we can sink.

David Model is a Professor of Political Science at Seneca College. He is
the author of States of Darkness: US Complicity in Genocides Since 1945.
He can be reached at: david.model [at] senecac.on.ca


--------19 of 19--------

The Olympics: Unveiling Police State 2.0
by Naomi Klein
Published on Thursday, August 7, 2008 by The Huffington Post
Common Dreams

So far, the Olympics have been an open invitation to China-bash, a
bottomless excuse for Western journalists to go after the Commies on
everything from internet censorship to Darfur. Through all the nasty news
stories, however, the Chinese government has seemed amazingly unperturbed.
That.s because it is betting on this: when the opening ceremonies begin
friday, you will instantly forget all that unpleasantness as your brain is
zapped by the cultural/athletic/political extravaganza that is the Beijing
Olympics.

Like it or not, you are about to be awed by China.s sheer awesomeness.

The games have been billed as China's "coming out party" to the world.
They are far more significant than that. These Olympics are the coming out
party for a disturbingly efficient way of organizing society, one that
China has perfected over the past three decades, and is finally ready to
show off. It is a potent hybrid of the most powerful political tools of
authoritarianism communism - central planning, merciless repression,
constant surveillance - harnessed to advance the goals of global
capitalism. Some call it "authoritarian capitalism," others "market
Stalinism," personally I prefer "McCommunism".

The Beijing Olympics are themselves the perfect expression of this hybrid
system. Through extraordinary feats of authoritarian governing, the
Chinese state has built stunning new stadiums, highways and railways - all
in record time. It has razed whole neighborhoods, lined the streets with
trees and flowers and, thanks to an "anti-spitting" campaign, cleaned the
sidewalks of saliva. The Communist Party of China even tried to turn the
muddy skies blue by ordering heavy industry to cease production for a
month - a sort of government-mandated general strike.

As for those Chinese citizens who might go off-message during the games -
Tibetan activists, human right campaigners, malcontent bloggers - hundreds
have been thrown in jail in recent months. Anyone still harboring protest
plans will no doubt be caught on one of Beijing's 300,000 surveillance
cameras and promptly nabbed by a security officer; there are reportedly
100,000 of them on Olympics duty.

The goal of all this central planning and spying is not to celebrate the
glories of Communism, regardless of what China's governing party calls
itself. It is to create the ultimate consumer cocoon for Visa cards,
Adidas sneakers, China Mobile cell phones, McDonald's happy meals,
Tsingtao beer, and UPS delivery - to name just a few of the official
Olympic sponsors. But the hottest new market of all is the surveillance
itself. Unlike the police states of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union,
China has built a Police State 2.0, an entirely for-profit affair that is
the latest frontier for the global Disaster Capitalism Complex.

Chinese corporations financed by U.S. hedge funds, as well as some of
American's most powerful corporations - Cisco, General Electric,
Honeywell, Google - have been working hand in glove with the Chinese
government to make this moment possible: networking the closed circuit
cameras that peer from every other lamp pole, building the "Great
Firewall" that allows for remote internet monitoring, and designing those
self-censoring search engines.

By next year, the Chinese internal security market is set to be worth
$33-billion. Several of the larger Chinese players in the field have
recently taken their stocks public on U.S. exchanges, hoping to cash in
the fact that, in volatile times, security and defense stocks are seen as
the safe bets. China Information Security Technology, for instance, is now
listed on the NASDAQ and China Security and Surveillance is on the NYSE. A
small clique of U.S. hedge funds has been floating these ventures,
investing more than $150-million in the past two years. The returns have
been striking. Between October 2006 and October 2007, China Security and
Surveillance's stock went up 306 percent.

Much of the Chinese government's lavish spending on cameras and other
surveillance gear has taken place under the banner of "Olympic Security".
But how much is really needed to secure a sporting event? The price tag
has been put at a staggering $12-billion - to put that in perspective,
Salt Lake City, which hosted the Winter Olympics just five months after
September 11, spent $315 million to secure the games. Athens spent around
$1.5-billion in 2004. Many human rights groups have pointed out that
China's security upgrade is reaching far beyond Beijing: there are now 660
designated "safe cities" across the country, municipalities that have been
singled out to receive new surveillance cameras and other spy gear. And of
course all the equipment purchased in the name of Olympics safety - iris
scanners, "anti-riot robots" and facial recognition software - will stay
in China after the games are long gone, free to be directed at striking
workers and rural protestors.

What the Olympics have provided for Western firms is a palatable cover
story for this chilling venture. Ever since the 1989 Tiananmen Square
Massacre, U.S. companies have been barred from selling police equipment
and technology to China, since lawmakers feared it would be directed, once
again, at peaceful demonstrators. That law has been completely disregarded
in the lead up to the Olympics, when, in the name of safety for athletes
and VIPs (including George W. Bush), no new toy has been denied the
Chinese state.

There is a bitter irony here. When Beijing was awarded the games seven
years ago, the theory was that international scrutiny would force China's
government to grant more rights and freedom to its people. Instead, the
Olympics have opened up a backdoor for the regime to massively upgrade its
systems of population control and repression. And remember when Western
companies used to claim that by doing business in China, they were
actually spreading freedom and democracy? We are now seeing the reverse:
investment in surveillance and censorship gear is helping Beijing to
actively repress a new generation of activists before it has the chance to
network into a mass movement.

The numbers on this trend are frightening. In April 2007, officials from
13 provinces held a meeting to report back on how their new security
measures were performing. In the province of Jiangsu, which, according to
the South China Morning Post, was using "artificial intelligence to extend
and improve the existing monitoring system" the number of protests and
riots "dropped by 44 per cent last year". In the province of Zhejiang,
where new electronic surveillance systems had been installed, they were
down 30 per cent. In Shaanxi, "mass incidents" - code for protests - were
down by 27 per cent in a year. Dong Lei, the province's deputy party
chief, gave part of the credit to a huge investment in security cameras
across the province. "We aim to achieve all day and all-weather monitoring
capability," he told the gathering.

Activists in China now find themselves under intense pressure, unable to
function even at the limited levels they were able to a year ago. Internet
cafes are filled with surveillance cameras, and surfing is carefully
watched. At the offices of a labor rights group in Hong Kong, I met the
well-known Chinese dissident Jun Tao. He had just fled the mainland in the
face of persistent police harassment. After decades of fighting for
democracy and human rights, he said the new surveillance technologies had
made it "impossible to continue to function in China".

It's easy to see the dangers of a high tech surveillance state in far off
China, since the consequences for people like Jun are so severe. It's
harder to see the dangers when these same technologies creep into every
day life closer to home-networked cameras on U.S. city streets, "fast
lane" biometric cards at airports, dragnet surveillance of email and phone
calls. But for the global homeland security sector, China is more than a
market; it is also a showroom. In Beijing, where state power is absolute
and civil liberties non-existent, American-made surveillance technologies
can be taken to absolute limits.

The first test begins today: Can China, despite the enormous unrest
boiling under the surface, put on a "harmonious" Olympics? If the answer
is yes, like so much else that is made in China, Police State 2.0 will be
ready for export.

Read my full report on how U.S. corporations are helping to build China's
high tech Police State in Rolling Stone.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is now out in
paperback. You can find extensive resources related to the book at
www.shockdoctrine.org.

Copyright  2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.


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