Divine Intervention

Apparently, Obama wants to stop Israel expanding its illegal settlements, apparently!(1) Sounds good, but what does this mean exactly? Are the settlements , nevertheless, to remain on the West Bank and to remain connected to Israel with by a network of roads that criss cross Palestinian land and effectively halt any territorial integrity of that land? Still, the charade is being played out in Jerusalem and Washington and being played out to the extent where we have one supposedly upsest Zionist, the Science Minister Daniel Herschkowitz, likening the "hype" man's decree, which our "gobblydegookers" argue will prevent the "natural growth" of the settlements, to some Pharaoh's declaration that "Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river,"(2) Now the deitic reference is a little bit lost on me here but the "good" man is, no doubt, refering to something that some Pharaoh said, some thousands of years ago, in reference to the Jewish people. Sometimes, I really think I am on the wrong planet! Surely, surely, it is time to put these lunatics in their place! Of course, those lunatics are not fools and they realise that when the "natural growth" of the settlements has been curtailed, Zionistan will have made its one big compromise and with that compromise it will be time for the "hype" man to offer the Palestinians a bit less than 20% of what was mandate Palestine, inclusive of the road networks and the settlements that effectively break up what is left of their land and in the meantime we will have the western and Israeli media spouting out nonsense to the effect that Obama is taking a preferential line toward the Palestinians. The really sad thing is, Abbas might just give up on the "rights of the Palestinian people" in exchange for this "U.S. illusion."(3) Moreover, when the deal is signed, sealed and delivered, those Palestinians who argue that they can never accept a peace which doesn't even address their basic rights under international law, will be tarred with the same brush as those lunatics, like Daniel Herschkowitz, who are not willing to "compromise". The goal posts have certainly been moved and with Israel's "opponents", Abbas and Obama, actually kicking ball for the Zionists, the Palestinians really do need a bit of the divine intervention.
1 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1089087.html
2 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1243346511682&
3 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1089015.html

The Dung Heap

In an earlier post I wrote, "The best analogy of a historian's brain I have heard is of it being like a dung heap and, if you leave it long enough it is likely something will grow."(1) Most of the historians I have read have only reinforced my conviction that there is an innate truth in this little analogy and it comes, therefore, as no surprise that despite a post-graduate degree from the London School of Economics in International History, I have become a bit of a failed historian. The evidence would now seem to suggest that, despite my talent for languages, I am on my way to becoming a failed linguist. Although, that can be no bad thing and it would appear that the majority of linguists don't know very much about languages.
Preparing for an exam I decided to have a little look at current psychological theories regarding language learning or, to be more appropriate, language acquistion and there I was reading this fine brain which maintains that in order to learn a language we have to "pay attention", the fine brain then called it "information processing" and we shouldn't confuse this with "connectionism" which asserts that it is the "frequency with which we learners encounter the specific linguistic features in the input and the ferequency with which the features occur together". Anyway, I went through this drivel almost systematically and moved on to encounter such mind bending theories as "conversational interaction is essential", very profound, indeed, "conversational interaction is essential" to learning a language, as is paying attention and hearing things over and over again and so I drifted through "the noticing hypothesis", that is correct, that ground breaking hypothesis that says you have got to notice language items, and ..... well, that brings me to the point.
Back at university those wooly thinking historians at least did provide me with some sort of tenous thesis and anti-thesis before moving onto their gobblydegook hypothesis. However, it is to the linguists that we should look if we want to confront ourselves with the hypothesis as an oxymoron. There they are producing almost banal common sense statements such as "you have to pay attention if you want to learn a language", which they couch in verbose pseudo scientific language. However, that is actually as good as it gets, and when the statements don't even make sense we find some wonderfully strange, rivetingly banal, "hypothesis" where there has been no real empirical research. The evidence would appear to suggest that the linguists, with their "Universal Grammars", "Monitoring Models", "Connectionism" etc etc, have moved to the very top of the wolly thinkers' dung heap.
1 http://thediplomatabroad.blogspot.com/2008/06/historians-brain.html
2 Patsy M.Lightbown, Nina Spada, 'How Languages are Learned' pp38-49, OUP, 2006

History Repeating Itself and Middle East Realities

It is very difficult not to become repetitive when you are writing on the situation in Palestine; when you are writing about each new farce, each new tragedy, each new piece of "chutzpah", each new crime; the reader is bound to experience a sort of "deja vu", a "tell me something new" and it is difficult because all of it, the illegal occupation, Saba and Shatila, Jenin, Gaza, etc.etc. remain a variation of the one theme and incidental to the real crime that began before Gaza, before Qana, before Jenin, before Saba and Shatila, before etc. etc. That is because, in the meantime the origins of the crime are forgotten and those origins do not lie in the Nazi Holocaust, and while everything that has happened and is happening does to some extent have a link to the ethnic cleansing of 1948, the root of the problem precedes both 1948 and the death camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Maidenek and Sachsenhausen. It goes back to the Arab uprising of 1936, it goes back further, it goes back to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and even further still, and it goes back to the first Zionist Congress, which was held at Basle from the 29th of August until the 31st of August 1897. Of course, the Zionists will argue that it goes back even further and that it goes back thousands of years, back to the biblical lands of Israel. Now considering that our "other" zany Zionists, those of the Christian ilk, think that the planet is only some 6,000 years old, that biblical claim on "Israel" is a pretty tall order and one which is quite difficult for a logically thinking person, like me, to swallow. Furthermore, while it might appear that there is at least an argument for a homeland for the "Jewish people" because of the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, because of the progroms in Tsarist Russia and persecution elsewhere, persecution which culminated in the Holocaust, then might not the Muslims whose forfathers were expelled from the Iberian peninsula claim a right of return to sunny Spain and might not the Gypsies who died in the gas chambers also claim a homeland. No, they might not but they should, at least, expect to be Muslims or Gypsies in whichever country they find themselves, without fear of persecution. Moreover, it cannot be said often enough but those who committed crimes against Jews were not Palestinians and no people can simply decide to build their homeland on someone else's land. Yes, that was the decision made in 1897 and that is the original crime and the crimes which followed are a consequence of that decision.
In the meantime, of course, each incident might be a variation of the theme, however, each incident has also created a new "reality" and the Zionists have, indeed, moved the goal posts. Nevertheless, while it is very difficult to ask the Palestinians to be generous, my suggestion is that they might be. 1948 was a crime and it should be recognised as such. Furthermore, this is not only a moral issue, it is a legal one; the Palestinians have, according to international law, a right to return. However, an apology, compensation, a right to visit, these things could all be part of a package that might see the Palestinians waive this right and thereby ensure that there is not another ethnic cleansing and, while this alone might suggest that crime does, indeed, pay, it would be a pragmatic step and one that would ensure that there would be neither another "shoah" for the Jewish people nor another "Nakba" for the Palestinians. That, however, is where the line has to be drawn and, remember, in drawing it here, the Palestinians are compromising on their legal right.
Unfortunately, the goal posts have not only been moved to a point where I find myself asking the Palestinians to, at least to some extent, accept the catastrophe of 1948, they have been moved to the point where the majority of the population in Zionistan have a view of reality that, at best, would be in sync with those "ewige Gestrige" who would love to see Germany back in the borders of 1941. The news is that Obama wants to halt the building of settlements on the territory occupied by Israel after the 1967 war and how does the Israeli public respond? Well, look at the readers letters in the 'Jerusalem Post' and 'Haaretz' today, the views expressed range from a, "well, just don't do it" to an "Obama will exchange the West Bank for peace with the Arabs".(1) Now, the "...., just don't do it" I can understand, because that is what the government in Israel will do, they just won't do it! However, the second letter I quoted there is more interesting and more interesting because, this particular Israeli, like the majority of Israelis, appears to believe that the West Bank is Israel's to exchange and it is believed despite an array of UN resolutions to the contrary. Of course, this too is a result of that decision made back in 1897, a decision for "Eratz Israel". Therfore, can an apology for 1948, compensation, Palestinians being allowed to visit their grandparents homes, a two-state solution that will generally work, be expected? No, because for that to happen Zionism and the Zionists would have to disappear and that won't just happen; the ethnic cleansing of Palestine will continue and the chance for real peace in the Middle East becomes increasingly unlikely. History does not stand still but as Marx said it repeats itself and with every day that goes by the chances of a new "Shoah", a new "Nakba", increases too. A new "reality" has to be established, the goal posts have to be moved in the Palestinians favour and it has to happen quickly.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088953.html
The picture above shows the medal issued after the first Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897

NGO Monitor

It is only right that NGOs should be monitored, and Amnesty International being drawn into the collective fascination with the Dalai Lama and all things Tibetan, while seemingly keeping relatively silent on China's "other colony", Xinjiang, might be indicative of a certain .... but wait I have just googled "Amnesty and Xingjiang" and it does seem that Amnesty are very active in pointing to abuses in human rights in Xingjiang too. Yes, it would appear that while we might find something to criticise Amnesty for they at least are not hypocritical when it comes to who they criticise and that they also criticise because they feel that there is something to criticise.
Anyway, Amnesty is now criticising Israel for human rights violations in Gaza and as we all know the Israelis have a wonderful ability to produce "their side of the argument" this happens. Nevertheless, if the government in occupied Jerusalem were to simply deny the accusation, ..... well, that would be a bit like Brother O'Reilly being caught inflangranti and saying, "I didn't do it". No, Brother O'Reilly would look for support to the "Society of True Christians against false Accusations", an organisation set up by peodophiles, pimps and rapist to protect their own and in Israel's case we have the Jerusalem-based research organization NGO Monitor, which says that Amnesty's report is "biased and disproportionate"(1), and there was me thinking that the 1,200 Palestinians who were slaughtered was disproportionate! Still, the organisation, whose president is Dore Gold, a one time advisor to Ariel Sharon, is certainly not biased in its criticism of anyone who criticises Israel and organisations such as Christian Aid, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, the Center for Constitutional Rights, "Medecins San Frontieres and "B'Tselem", have all felt its wrath.(2) Yes, while Amnesty is not exclusive when it comes to criticising human rights abuses, NGO Monitor will criticise anyone who criticises Israel and not to matter that there they were again, caught red handed, using phosphorus ammunition, maiming and murdering, attacking schools, hospitals, private houses and maybe when Brother O'Reilly is caught inflangranti he might be better to try and apportion blame to his victims rather than for him to say, "it wasn't me".
1 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088912.html
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGO_Monitor

Hillary's advisor on Iran

After the Six Day War in 1967 Dennis Ross appears to have made the transition from secular to religious Jew and in 2002 he co-founded the Kol Shalom synagogue in Rockville Md.(1) Not surprisingly, he is considered a strong supporter of Israel. Nevertheless, knowing the world as it is and not how we would like it to be, being pro-Israel is hardly going to exclude you from government service in the good old "US of A". On the contrary, Dennis has worked in one capacity or another for Carter and Reagan, for George the Elder and George the Younger and for Billy boy Clinton. Yes it would appear that our Dennis is a very busy bee and while serving his country, and we all know which country I am talking about, he has also rendered his services to various "high powered" Zionists think tanks, including the 'Jewish People Planning Institute', whiich is based in Jerusalem.
Of course, Dennis has the "perfect" curriculum vitae and it was to be no more than expected that he was in line for a wee job when the "hype" man took over from Georgie; Dennis is the Secretary of State's advisor on Iran. That's right, while Rahm 'Rambo' Emanuel, in his role as Obama's Chief of Staff, can prevent information from getting to the President, Dennis whispers all sorts of drivel into Hillary Clinton's ears and, believe me, if there is one person who doesn't have to ask 'Rambo' for permission to talk to the President then it is Hillary. Now I have no illusions about Obama, he has got himself a wee job and he has set his family up for life, if not for generations. Nevertheless, even if the "hype" man was thinking of being an honest broker in the Middle East, which he is not, but that's not the point, even if he was, you have to consider this; Dennis has written a book called 'Myths, illusions, and Peace', with the 'Jerusalem Post's' David Makovsky, and in that book he says that "the United States will not make progress toward peace in the Middle East with the Obama administration's new plan."(2) Now, maybe I have misunderstood something here, but is Obama not his boss? Of course, there are all sorts of answers to that question and I am sure that "our" 'Dennis the menace", a man who is against a two state solution and who doesn't want the settlements dismantled, feels as much at home in the "hype" man's administration as he did when working for Jimmy or Ronnie or George Sr. or Billy or George Jr.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ross
2 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088479.html

Avigdor Lieberman warns North Korea

Now, whatever we might think of the regime in North Korea is one thing and those of us who look at it favourably really are beond the pale, nevertheless, it is something else when Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, urges the international community to do everything in its power to prevent Iran and North Korea from fulfilling their nuclear ambitions,(1) it really is time to laugh our heads off at the hypocrisy. Let's forget the nonsensical link between Iran and North Korea that the Israelis, and Americans have established, for a second and consider only what the "content" of this drivel is based on.
The North Koreans we are told have carried out a subterranean nuclear test, exploding a device that is as powerful as the bomb dropped by the Americans on Nagasaki. Now, if you didn't know it already, a little piece of deduction there will inform you that the Americans have actually used nuclear weapons and here they are getting very, very upset when someone else explodes a nuclear device under the ground. However, back to my "friend" Lieberman, we have the Foreign Minister of a country that has some 600 illegal nuclear warheads, that is illegally occupying someone else's country, that is illegally building illegal settlements on that illegally occupied country, that illegally uses phosphorous munitions, that has just illegally massacred over a thousand innocents in Gaza, that illegally refuses to give the UN maps of those parts of a the southern Lebanon, a country which they invaded illegally, that would reveal where they have sprayed their millions of illegal cluster bombs that are illegally maiming and murdering Lebanese men, women and children to this day. Now having done a little bit of deduction already during your reading of this piece, what about a little bit more and would the evidence not appear to suggest that this man is either a complete idiot or a complete hypocrite or both?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088319.html

End Days

When Armageddon arrives everyone is going to be ecstatic; the Jewish Zionists will be having spirtual orgasms and praising the coming of their "moshiac", we will have our Christian Zionists, the "slightly" deluded dispensationalists, going into end day raptures over the second coming of the "holy hippy" and we will have our merry Muslims singing their equivalent of "Hallelluiah" on the advent of the twelth Imam, the one and only, "Mahdi", who will be accompanied by, none other than the "holy hippy" who is going to tell the "true Christians" to become Muslims and be saved and, oh, surprise, surprise, the deluded dispensationalists are going offer 144,000 Jews salvation provided they recognise the "holy hippy" as the big man in the sky's son. No matter that the nuclear catastrophe, the Armageddon, that accompanies, all of these orgasms or "comings", if you get the pun, will be a sort of man made thing; it will be made by people like Netanyhu, who is telling us today that "Jerusalem will never be divided",(1) who believes that Zionists have a divine right to land that is not theirs and who believes that Jews have to be on that land before their mystic messaih comes. However, probably more importantly, the end days will be made by our deluded dispensationalists, who massively influence American foreign policy, and believe that the Jews should be settled on all the land from the Mediterranean sea to the Euphrates river, from Sinai right into the middle of what is now Syria and then, when they are all there and after they have destroyed all the the mosques, and after they have practiced their babaric rituals for some four years, "ZAAAAAP", they get their second "Shoah". Still when the end of days does appear our mad Mahdis will, at least, draw some consolation from the fact that the Mahdi has arrived and after the mushroom cloud has gone away the whole world will be Muslim. Of course, after the cloud has gone away the idiots who are left over will come up with a new and "wonderfully" strange religion and and it will never dawn on them that it was they who caused the whole fucking disaster in the first place. Then, it can hardly dawn on them, after all their pea brains will view it all as a godsend, rather than a disaster, the final confrontation between good and evil, and when they go looking for their "holy hippy" or their "messaih" or their "mahdi" they will discover that he is not there and it is time to wait for the next coming. Still, on talking about "coming"; as long as porn sells better than the "pious" piffle there is a modicum of hope.
1 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israeli-pm-says-jerusalem-will-never-be-divided-1689015.html

Policy Differences and War Crimes

Followed the pseudo "debate" between Cheney and Obama a bit more today and a number of things come to mind; interesting is, first and foremost, how much they might even agree with one another, with the "hype" man saying that policy differences shouldn't be criminalised and Dick "the war criminal" saying that the administration should not treat political opponents as criminals. Don't worry Dick, they won't! Of course, one has to wonder what Obama means when he says policy differences should not be criminalised when what we are talking about are "policy differences" that are in fact criminal; wasn't torture always illegal? Or at least hasn't it been illegal for a long time? Oh and then there are the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which are based on lies! However, as I have stated in a couple of recent posts, with or "hype" fellow agreeing to continue the illegal wars, he cannot exactly set a precedent and charge the former administration for war crimes, can he? After all, who knows what it might lead to and with the man in the White House taking prosecution of the table, although that was, of course, never a consideration, he will just have to listen to the rantings and ravings of Dick, at least, until the neo-conservative media decide that he is no longer an asset! After all there really aren't any policy differences and what our "hype" man has already joined the band of rogues, but did we really expect anything else.

Obama and Cheney debate

The "dangerous" debate taking place between the war criminal, now private citizen, "should be in jail" but isn't, Dick Cheney, and the "want to close Guantanamo, but haven't quite managed to, but I have increased preventive detention measures", "and the CIA committed torture but nobody will be prosecuted" "hype" man, reminds one of the type of debate Zwingili and Luther indulged in during the first part of the 16th century on the doctrine of transubstantiation. With the pragmatic Luther adopting a position, which basically implied that if it gave solace to the ignorant masses then let them have their eucharist and Luther and Zwingili only sort of went their own ways as they went in pursuit of the Roman anti-christ. Not, of course, that our Roman anti-christs were angels themselves.
So, here we have this supposedly "dangerous" debate between Obama and Cheney when, in actual fact, if Obama were really eminating any danger for Dick, who is a real terrorist and a bone fide war criminal, then he would have long since arrested him for war crimes. Of course, he cannot do that and with the "increasing preventive measures and getting more Americans involved in illegal wars" man committing crimes all of his own what we have is a debate that is every bit as farcical as the one Luther and Zwingili engaged in centuries ago. No, a little bit more farcical, in fact, and if I remember my history of the Reformation correctly, the German princes stopped supporting Zwingili after the debates with Luther and watched on while he was killed by the Catholic forces at the battle of Kappel in 1531. Now, wouldn't it be nice if Dick was sent off to a marine unit in the Hindikush? Certainly, if he was to be as serous about his faith as the mad axe swinging Zwingili was, he might, even volunteer to go, instead of continuing to spout his disgustingly deceitful drivel, and he could, at least, like Zwingili, believe he was going to his maker having died for his convictions rather than having to confront the big man at the pearly gate knowing that only other people died for them.

The Kingdom of the Blind

Of course, there were the usual readers' letters in 'Haaretz', and even more so in the 'Jerusalem Post' today and there they were, complaining that a poster from the Israeli Tourist Board has been removed from the London Underground because it showed a map of Israel with the occupied Golan Heights and the Palestinian territories with Israel's borders.(1) Yes, the usual drivel, it is to be expected. However, for me, the map you can see in the picture, .... well, an appropriate analogy would be the German Tourist Board putting up a map of Germany in the borders of 1937, Still, those twats won't see it like that, because they really don't see and how can they when their horizons invariably end at 'Haaretz' or, even worse, the 'Jerusalem Post'?
The 'Jerusalem Post' writes, "The Syrian Embassy and pro-Palestinian groups complained about it because the featured map appeared to show the territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideastwar - the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights - within the borders of the Jewish state, according to the Israeli Tourism Ministry and the British standards authority,"(2) and if you tell part of the truth all of the time and all of the truth none of the time, the result has to be that type of subjectivity that constititutes that type of grand self deceit that has ultimately led to Zionistan resembling the kingdom of the blind. 'Haaretz' repeats the 'Jerusalem Post' story saying that, "The Syrian Embassy and pro-Palestinian groups complained about it (the poster) because the featured map appeared to show the territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war - the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights - within the borders of Israel, according to the Israeli Tourism Ministry and the British standards authority."(3) "Appeared to show" or did show? A photo of the poster has been attached above.
This type of "chutzpah" is to be expected from the Zionist state and the drivel that comes out of the kingdom of the blind can hardly be surprising. More interestingly, however, is Haroon Siddique and Hélène Mulholland, from the 'Guardian' when they write on the same story, "The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and Jews for Justice for Palestinians both complained to the ASA as well as to CBS Outdoor, which is responsible for the poster sites, and Transport for London (TfL), which said it received more than 600 complaints."(4) Now, we are beginning to get the picture and in the kingdom of the blind, it might be enough, to feed our ignoramuses with bits of the truth, but the whole truth and nothing but the truth? The Syrian Embassy and some pro-Palestinian groups, Jews for Justice for Palestinians and a few hundred more people have complained and, and why? Well, maybe the Palestinians were a trifle upset at seeing their country "officially" disappear from the planet, and with some young Londoner looking at that map Palestine was disappearing, and maybe, just maybe some of the Londoners who complained just found the poster as tasteless as they would have found a poster showing Germany in its 1937 borders. More important, however, is that the "Jews for Justice for Palestinians" complained, for it is these people who represent real hope for the future and that is why this latest disgusting piece of "chutzpah" has a postive twist, Whatever, the Zionists contend, or say, Israel, the World Jewish Congress, AIPAC and their allies and affliates do not only not represent western civiisation, they don't even begin to represent all Jews or, indeed, all Israelis. Yes, we can hope!
1 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1087487.html
2 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1242212443109&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
3 ibid (see one above)
4 http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/22/israel-underground-ads-occupied-territories-map

Messiahs, Saviours, Maddis and Madmen

A few years ago when I was working in Bahrain I got friendly with this friendly, bright guy called Ismael and Ismael offered a wee bit of intellectual ambience in a part of the world where that is generally lacking. However, the one topic we didn't talk about too much was religion and we couldn't really talk about it because this intelligent, nice little man was a Shia who genuinely believed that the Imam al-Mahdi will reappear when the world has fallen into chaos. That's right folks there is going to be a big, big, war and the Imam Mahdi will appear on the scene, with his pal Jesus, destroy tyranny and falsehood and bring justice to all and sundry. Now, Ismael was a bright guy and I really used to wonder whether he actually believed this. He did, but my attitude was live and let live and that is generally an attitude that I still hold. However, there are days like today, where I am forced to think about the consequences of that "live and let live" attitude. Today, I watched the little video, which has been embedded above, on the mad Christian Zionists, in the good old US of A and, do you know, it really is time that all of us told these people, the Mad Maddis, the deranged dispensationalists, the zany Zionists, that enough, is enough, and if they don't start to get well, we will have to put them into straight jackets and lock them all up on the funny farm. After all, what they believe is not only gobblydegook, it is dangerous destructive gobblydegook.

Stream of Consciousness

In Dostoyevsk's ', parable a 'tale of the Grand Inquisitor' the Jesus man arrives in Seville at the time of the Inquisition, does his miracles and the people recognise him, adore him, love him to bits, but along come the Inquisition police force, arrest him and sentence him to be burnt to death the following day. Still, the Grand Inquisitor, feels that he owes our holy hippy an explanation, so before they burn him alive - no maverick appearances three days after that -, off goes the man in the "capirote" to have a wee chat with the son of God in his cell and explain to him why the church no longer needs him and how his being around would interfere with the mission of the church. Too right, it would because the Jesus man was a peace loving fellow and not into Inquisitions and things like that and, I am actually quite sure that if he had turned up in the late 1960s and not round about 1660 he would have been wearing flowers in his hair and singing, "If you go to San Francisco".
Now the point is, our prophet, 'the Lord', really did fail to see what Charlie Marx saw a few centuries later when on hearing about and observing the behaviour of the first Marxists to appear on the scene, he said, "If these guys are Marxists, I am not a Marxist." Even Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was to point out that the problem with most Communists in his day was that they didn't have a clue about Communism. Of course, it was only to get worse and along came "Uncle Joe's" purges, Chairman Mao's "Cultural Revolution" and Pol Pot's 'Killing Fields', and the God squad?
Well, at least in the West, they really did get their shenanigans curtailed. Nevertheless, the "Holy See" did manage to sign its unholy concordat, on the 20th of July 1933, with the Nazis and it did sort of turn a blind eye to the mass murder of European Jewry and millions of others and it would appear that while they were turning a blind eye to mass murder they were also turning a blind eye to a little something else. Namely, the Clergy interfering with little children and today's 'Guardian' reports, that a "2,600-page report by Ireland's Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse found that for decades rape was "endemic" in more than 250 Irish Catholic care institutions from the 1930s to the 1990s, and that the church in Ireland protected paedophiles in its ranks from arrest."(1) Yes, our Sadist in the "caprirote" was quite right to worry about the Jesus fellow interfering in the "mission of the church" and I am quite sure that 'Uncle Joe' would have had Charlie shot had he appeared on the scene .... the revolution does, indeed, eat its children, ..... at least!
1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/20/child-abuse-catholic-schools-ireland

Pappe talk in Manchester

Interesting talk given by Ilan Pappe, where he discusses the occupation after 1967 and how the decisions that are still being taken today were made even before the seven day war; the decision not to carry out an ethnic cleansing such as the one that was carried out in 1948, the decision to keep the land and imprison the people living there, the decision to sell this occupation as a peace drive, the decsion to pass laws to support the occupation. Interesting stuff, certainly worth a watch and you can draw your own conclusion and there is me drawing a little comparison with a certain meglomaniac who liked to pass laws, occupy someone else's land, imprison whole peoples, revelled in collective punishment, destroyed houses, killed people, and then try to sell it as something else. "Seit 5.45 Uhr wird jetzt zurückgeschossen! Und von jetzt ab wird Bombe mit Bombe vergolten! “Yes, him!

Israel to attack Iran by next summer

AIPAC, Israel and the US Media are all trying to push America to confront Iran. There is enough evidence to suggest that "Uncle Sam" is already on board, was always on board and never had any intention of not being on board. Therefore, what do we have? We have a nonsensical farce where Bibi vistis the "hype" man and, according to the 'New York Times', while, they "stressed common goals and played down their differences on strategy, it seemed clear that they still do not agree even on the basic question of how much time remains to stop Iran from gaining a nuclear weapons capability."(1) In the meantime, the continued occupation of the West Bank, the extension of the settlements and the not offering the Palestinians very much accept the key to a prison rather than a key to their lost homes, will continue and ..... and well, it will all be about Iran, won't it? And when Israel finally does try to go for the jugular, our "hype" man will just say, "well, we did try and we did wait, but ..... and now we will just have to protect our ally whose very existence is being threatened." So, there we have it and my little scenario; with Brigadier General Michael Herzog, the chief of staff to Israel’s minister of defense, saying, “Under a certain scenario, if the Iranians decide to speed ahead, they can have a first device by the end of 2010, perhaps the beginning of 2011, and that’s not very far away”,(2) we can expect Israel to attack Iran during the summer of next year, after repeated expressions of frustration at Iran from our "hype" man, we can then expect our "hype" man to come away with the usual disgusting drivel about how they did give Iran a chance, and, in the meantime, the building of the new settlement and the expansion of the old ones will have continued unabated and the Palestinians will be as far as they ever were from statehood and nobody really does talk about the nuclear weapons that Israel deceived Kennedy to get, but denies having and, having denied having them, they cannot be brought into the occassion, can they? Then they don't really have them, but they do! Yes, the drivel, the gobblydegook, the 'newspeak', the nonsense, the dead metaphors, don't only facilitating the killing of innocents, they are sort of killing the English language.
1 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/us/politics/19web-sanger.html?_r=1&hp
2 ibid

The Iron Cage

Obama is talking to Netanyahu; the "hype" fellow is supposedly pushing a "two state solution", but then we know all about his hype, while Bibi steers clear of endorsing a two state solution offering instead to allow the Palestinians to govern themselves, while for the first time in thirty years Israel announces the building of an entirely new settlement on Palestinian land, occupied land, land, which Israel has no right to be on,(1) and in the meantime, the Israelis continue to expand the settlements that they already have in the West Bank and their destruction of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem continues unabated . This really is an absurd sick joke! Netanyahu's, ""We don't want to govern the Palestinians. We want them to govern themselves,"(2), while Israel controls the borders, airspace, and commerce, of the collection of "self-governing" "Bantustans", is like asking a man to be his own jailer and I can only recommend Rashid Khalidi's, 'The Iron Cage'.
1 http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/05/200951817522268394.html
2 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1086377.html

Democracies and Demonstrators

The 'Jerusalem Post' today, reports an Obama interview with 'Newsweek', where he said, "I understand very clearly that Israel considers Iran an existential threat, and given some of the statements that have been made by [Iranian] President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, you can understand why." (1) This is absolute nonsense and if Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon, would they use it? Of course not, because if they did, they know very well that that would be the end of Iran. No, what it would mean, if Iran had "the bomb" is that our Zionist bully boys might not get away with quite as much bullying. Furthermore, if an Iranian atomic bomb is hardly a threat to Israel, what threat could it possibly be to the United States? The answer to that is as obvious as the answer to the question, are American and Israeli interests identical? Again, they are most certainly not and they never were! However, the "chutzpah" of our zany Zionists is such that they would like us all to believe that they are. Indeed, while I am not exactly a fan of "Uncle Sam's" geopolitical shennanigans, I can, sometimes, see the machiavellian logic behind them. Hegemony in the Gulf and Central Asia, divide and rule in black Africa, keeping the thumb on the Balkans. It all makes sense if you are pursuing a strategy aimed at ensuring global hegemony. However, what possible strategic use is Israel since the fall of the Soviet Union? Oh, but I forgot, it's a democracy ..... right let me think about that for a second and move onto my next little story.
Walking through Munich today, I was surprised to see a demonstration by Tamili men, women and children. who were protesting against the massacre of their families by the Singalese Army. It made me stop and think for a minute and I had to think about why there are so few protests by Arab Israelis and one of the reasons for that is that, after twelve of them were shot dead back in 2000, ..... well, they are a wee bit scared. Yes, sometimes Munich can seem quite a nice place and there was the Bavarian Police letting the Tamils do something that you not only won't find them doing in Colombo but also something that Israeli Arabs would be frightened of doing in Israel; they were all sitting down blocking the traffic. Yes, this place is far from perfect but when I look at Palestine or Sri Lanka, I just have to think that it can get a lot worst. Anyway, "Uncle Sam" doesn't really have any good reasons for supporting Zionistan and it is time for the Sinhalese Army to stop massacring the Tamil people.
1 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1242212390277&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The photo shows the Tamil demonstrators blocking the road in Munich today

Why do we listen to these people?

The pictures are not going to be revealed, the people who committed the torture are not going to be prosecuted, Guantanamo is not going to be closed and more troops are being sent to Afghanistan where they will continue to kill countless innocent men, women and children and still we listen to the drivel or do we just turn a deaf air now to the "hype" man, or did we ever listen to the crap?
In the meantime Netanyahu is about to tell Obama that Iran's nuclear programme is threatening another holocaust. Netanyahu could invite inspectors into Israel's own nuclear facility at Dimona, but then that would be a bit pointless as we already know what is there. Of course, he could promise that Israel will scrap its nuclear weapons in return for Iran abandoning its nuclear programme. That is not going to happen and we can expect lots, and lots of drivel when Bibi and the "hype" man meet.

The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy

It is interesting sometimes when you read little books on things that you normally pick up on in the 'daily drivel', that calls itself journalism. Because the book, you see, brings the argument to a different level, and if it is to be refuted, well, it should be refuted academically if the denial is to mean anything. Unless, of course, the book is utter shit but then if it is utter shit, nobody buys it because they can read that sort of stuff every day in the newspapers.
Today I started reading 'The Israel lobby and US foreign policy' by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M.Walt and there they are lots of little sentences with little numbers after them to quote the source. Irrefutable stuff and, after receiving a démarche from Kennedy July 1963, demanding that Israel permit inspectors to Israel's nuclear facility at Dimona,Levi Eshkol, Ben Gurion's successor, told his colleagues: "What am I frightened of? His man will come, and he will actually be told that he can visit (the Dimona site) and go anywhere he wishes, but when he wants a door opened at some place or another then (Emanue) Prat (head of construction at Dimona) will tell him "Not that."(1) It is common knowledge that Israel now has chemical and biogical weapons and some two hundred nuclear warheads. It is common knowledge that Washingtons supports a country that has illegal WMD and that has given its neighbours at least an incentive to seek such weapons for themselves. What fucking hypocrites!
These little numbers after the sentences are important because when they are there we are being told that this is more than someone's opinion, we are being told that this is information, which has a source and if it is to be refuted proof is required that that source either doesn't exist or that there is a better source, which tells us something else.Down in 'Zionistan' they have never deemed it necessary to deny their nuclear capacity, to deny the fact that they have illegal biological weapons and that is because the "rules" don't apply to them. Of course, for our zany Zionists it is good that those "rules" don't apply. After all, they would be in a bit of a pickle if they did!
1 John J.Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, 'The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy', pp 35-38

Obama warns Netanyahu

The news is that Obama has warned Israel against attacking Iran.(1) Of course, what we now have are the zany Zionists going seriously silly, screaming their little heads off and shouting out stuff like, "how dare the United States tell us what to do", "we don't need the United States anyway", and "what has America, ever done to help us", etc. etc. The indignation, real or otherwise, should not be taken too seriously and neither should Obama's warning. On the contrary, here is a "wonderful" scenario for you all to think about; the "hype" man is saying if Israel attacks Iran, it will be against the United States wishes." Israel then attacks Iran, Iran retaliates, .... and the United States? Well, no doubt, the US will then sell itself as the honest broker who never wanted this to happen, but now it has Iran better just swallow it, or else!
1 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1085466.html

Sometimes even a madman can talk sense

My views on the little fellow in medieval garb, the one and only Josef Ratzinger, who represents the "kafflik division" of the 'God Squad', his holy of hollies, his holiest, his holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, are well known; this little fellow would usher in the inquisition again tomorrow, if he thought he could get away with it and he would certainly find common cause on a number of social issues with the zany Zionists of the settler ilk, Saudi's wierd wahhabi wankers and the self-flagellating Shia, indeed, on mentioning the slightly mad followers of the twelve Imam, appropriately named, "al-Mahdi", I am reminded of the fact that only last year Joe spent three days in a semi-rural retreat operated by Opus Dei, and when it comes to sado-masochism these lads would not be out of place round about "Ashora" time in Karbala or Najaf and if you think I am exaggerating, how about the following little piece on their activities: "While supernumeries offer small "mortifications", or discomforts, such as keeping the heating low or forgoing sugar in their teach, numerarires of both sexes induc physical discomfort by wearing a cilice - a wire band round the thigh which irritates the skin - often for an hour each day, and by whipping themselves with a knotted rope, known as "the discipline" once a week."(1) Aye, nothing like a wee bit of discipline! The point is, the wee man in the medieval garb is not someone anyone should be taking too seriously. However, this wee man is taken seriously by lots and lots of people and even when it comes to his holiness, the number one "kafflik" Josef Ratzinger, I am tempted to go along with Bob Dylan when he said something about some of the people being right some of the time and there was Joe upsetting our zany Zionists by saying during a speech in Bethlehem, "The Holy See supports the right of your people to a sovereign Palestinian homeland in the land of your forefathers, secure and at peace with its neighbors, within internationally recognized borders."(2) Yes, some of the people are right some of the time and even Joe doesn't always talk crap.
1 http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/housechu/odbio.htm
2 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1085216.html

HATTLER - Assalamu Alaikum - Live 2008 (HD) 3/3

Received a mail this morning from someone who had read my blog and was asking me to promote his no budget video for German bass legend Hellmut Hattler, while adding that the film is interesting because it deals with the situation in the Middle East. It does and the music, which I didn't know beforehand, is excellent.
The clip has been embedded above

Tolerance

Now, if you saw a bunch of wallies hauling a big wooden cross down Oxford Street with some of the wallies whiping themselves on their bare backs, you would think, well, you would think, "what a bunch of wallies" and rightly so and all across Europe you still find them and I mean just go down to Rome or Seville or Altötting. Nevertheless, I was thinking that for the most part you no longer see them in "Blighty" and in the non-catholic parts of Europe these nutcases are, more or less, hidden from view and that can be no bad thing. However, there was me thinking that "Blighty" is in the process of giving the God squad a back seat and then, all of a sudden, I discovered a photo, taken by Don McCullin in 2006, in today's 'Guardian' and there we have it, some "Shia", who have probably spent the whole of their lives in England, with nothing better to do than whip themselves silly in public. Time to bring on the hindus with that bit where all the wives accompany the husbands onto the funeral pyre and, who knows, maybe we can introduce public stonings for our sunni brethern. Of course, I am forgetting myself, we have to be tolerant.
The photo is from Bradford in 2006 and not Spain in 1706.

Admitting Guilt

An interesting documentary film on the Sichaun earthquake has been aired by HBO and 'Democracy Now' availed itself of the opportunity to interview the two co-directors, John Alpert and Matt O'Niel. In principal they are both right in their believing that the Chinese authorities should face up to their responsibilities and allow a proper investigation into why some 9,000 of the 90,000 victims were school children who might not have died had their schools been built properly,(1) Nevertheless, John Alpert's contention that, while the US government's behaviour at Katrina was scandelous, a free press did at least allow this to become public knowledge doesn't really mean very much. Does it really matter if the great American public is officially informed of those things that are really common knowledge? Especially when George W Bush goes on to say, "Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government. And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."(2) Forgetting all of the obvious crimes that he does not admit to, here he is effectively admitting that he is guilty of a serious crime and was he impeached?
Of course, the parents in Sichaun should have their platform and it is not only important that we are aware of their plight but also that those responsible are held to account. However, please let's not look to America for a model here, a model where liability and criminal actions are sometimes confessed when they are all too blatant but always denied when they are not and even when a confession is forthcoming, the perpetrators get off scot free.
1 http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/7/chinas_unnatural_disaster_new_hbo_documentary
2 http://dems.advomatic.com/node/6117

Obama's War

Having just listened to the 'Guardian's" Washington bureau chief, Ewan MacAskill's, almost matter-of- fact reporting on Obama's meeting last week with Karzai and Zadari,(1) and having listened to extracts of speeches given by Obama and his side-kick Hillary Clinton, I am convinced that the drivel that comes out of the "hype" man's mouth is not even qualitatively better than that of his predecessor and on hearing, rather than reading, Hillary apologising for the latest civilian deaths, I only find another of my senses being assaulted. The mp3 can be found under the 'Guardian' headline, "Pakistan and Afghanistan: Obama doesn't think they have been aggressive enough."(2)
Well it looks like Zadari, who like all "good" Pakistani politcal leaders is raking in millions, has taken the "hype" man's little lecture to heart and now we have the Pakistani army swarming all over the swat valley in search of "terrorists", al quadi or otherwise, real or imagined and the headline in today's 'Independent', "Pakistan faces biggest human flood since 1947",(3) at least gives us some indication of where the real problem lies, and it has very real roots in the mess that the British helped to create when they gave up their jewel in the crown. Moreover, for those of us who know what happened in 1947, the size of the problem today should be apparent and there we have the "hype" man, with his nonsensical talk about "democracy in the region", building his castles in the air on the rotten foundations that were created by perfide Albion and when it comes to him building his pipeline down to Karachi .... well, the "hype" man seems to inhabit a similar world to the one he would like to construct and in the meantime we have potentially up to a million refugees running from the Americans, from the Pakistani Army and from the Taliban.
1 http://thediplomatabroad.blogspot.com/2009/05/hype-man-man-with-nice-shawls-and-other.html
2 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audio/2009/may/06/barack-obama-afghanistan-pakistan
3 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/pakistan-faces-biggest-human-flood-since-1947-1682309.html

"The Little Englanders"

Abbas Kiarostami, 68, the Iranian director, was awared the "palme d'Or" in 1997 for his film 'Taste of Cherry' and, although I had neither heard of him nor his film, and although the "palme d'Or" only vaguely rings a bell, he appears to have an excellent reputation as a director. However, he will not be visiting London, as planned, to direct Cosi fan tutte for the English National Opera. It would appear that his decision not to come is because of the almost Kafkaesque behaviour of the British Embassy in Teheran and the evidence woud seem to suggest that the treatment Mr Kiarostami was subjected to was not wholly unlike that dished out to Josef K, the hero of Kafka's 'Der Prozeß';(1) a few hours after the original application for his visa was granted, he was asked to resubmit the application again and he was asked for a second set of fingerprints, although the original set were only a few hours old.(2) Mr Kiarostami quite rightly went into a huff.
Now, I am sure Mr Kaorstami will move on and having made his intentions clear that he will not apply for a visa for the United Kingdom again, we might expect to see him in elsewhere in the European Union but not in 'Blighty'. The United Kingdom's loss, maybe, but the land of hope and glory will get over it and so will Mr Kaorstami. Unfortunately, lessons will not have been learned and the petty officials that populate the British Foreign Office will, despite stories like this reaching the newspapers, continue to treat all and sundry like shit and continue to believe that it is actually a privilege for anyone to be allowed to go to "their" England. Moreover, foreign students will still have to show evidence of big fat bank accounts before they are allowed to leave a large chunk of that fat bank account at a British university. Furthermore, 'Blighty's'petty officials will still hassle certain foreigners at Dover and Heathrow, despite those foreigners having valid visas in their passports. Indeed, the same petty officials will continue to be pretty petty vis-a-vis their own contrymen abroad and when it comes to returning "home" with a couple of "strange" visas in your passport, you might even get involved in a dialogue that goes something like this; ".... and how long do you intend to stay in the country, Sir?" "Pardon, I have just given you a British passport." "Sir, that is not what I asked you, I asked you, how long you intend to stay in the country." The "little Englanders", the undiplomatic, diplomats.
1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/may/09/iranian-kiarostami-director-cancels-visit
2 ibd

Pathos

We are informed by the 'Times' that Barak Obama is to visit Buchenwald, which has special significance for him because, according to Obama, his great uncle helped liberate it.(1) The pathos smacks of piffle and all the more so when we consider the fact that as late as a year ago the "hype" man was poclaiming that he “had an uncle who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps."(2) Of course, that story had to be revised since everyone knows that it was the Russians who liberated Auschwitz. Now it is Buchenwald and, while the "hype" man might have had an uncle who "helped" to liberate the camp, the fact that Obama was still confusing Buchenwald with Auschwitz as recently as a year ago, is indicative of what it it really meant or means for him. Of course, for our "hype" man, our "iMac politician", the media's darling, it is all about politics and publicity. No doubt, we might even get a tear or two, which will be a tear or two more than he shed for the 120 Afghanistani men, women and children who were recently murdered by an Army, of which he is Commander in Chief.
1 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6245200.ece
2 ibid

Racist Twaddle

Got this from 'Haaretz' today," Genetic diseases prevalent among Ashkenazic Jews (of European descent) may actually be tied to a higher intellience quotient, according to two American professors. Anthropology researches Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending argue that neurological disorders such as Tay-Sachs and Canavan disease have made Jews smarter, due to what is known as heterozygote advantage."(1)
Quite frightening actually and it goes without saying that we really don't need nonsense like this and while I am sure that some Ashkenakzic Jews, or rather Europeans, because that is what they are, are smart, I am also quite certain that a some of them are complete imbeciles.
1 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1081467.html

The "hype" man, the man with the nice shawls, and the other chap

"The quality newspapers" in the United Kingdom are sometimes known as "broadsheets". This is a reference to the layout and shape they used to have and I remember the heady days when the 'Times' had no pictures. The pictures arrived before Murdoch. However, it was with his ascendancy that the real drivel started to appear. Nevertheless, there is still a pretence that "real news" is being provided and the pretence continues not only in the UK. In Germany there is "Die Süddeutsche Zeitung", "Die Frankfurter Rundschau", "Die Frankfurter Allgemeine" and one or two others, but, for "real news", you will have to read between the lines folks and there was me reading the 'New York Times' online today and looking at a nice picture of the "hype" man, flanked by the man with the nice shawls, Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan, and his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zadari and there they are, sitting smugly, while seemingly engaged in that sort of deictic discourse that deceives all and sundry. The headline above the picture reads; "Emphasis on Al Qaeda in three way talks".(1)
Of course, "Al Qaeda" is the pretence, the scam, and what we have going on in the region is a geopolitical fuck up that goes all the way back to British India with the Pashtu on both sides of the 'Durand Line' more than a trifle pissed off at being pushed around. However, it is the elusive "Al Qaeda" that provides "Uncle Sam's" immoral pretext to kill innocent men, women and children, in order to achieve geopolitical goals that should belong to another age and there we have the "hype" man's sycophants, Hamid and Asif, sitting there grinning, grinning, when, in fact, they should be displaying leadership and telling the Americans to get out of their countries. Oh, for some decent journalism, oh for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and don't tell me that it is never that simple.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/world/asia/07prexy.html?ref=world
The picture shows the "hype" man, the man with the nice shawls, and the other chap

Hillary Apologises

Some one hundred civilians have just been killed by US forces in Aghanistan but it is alright because the US secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has apolgised saying that she, "deeply, deeply" regrets the loss of innocent life apparently caused by the US bombing in Afghanistan."(1) Now the more cynical of us might want to paraphase the "I deeply, deeply regret" with a "I am really, really sorry", put the tonic stress on the first syllables of the two adverbs and call Hillary a cynical heartless bastard. Not me and all I am going to say is, what are Amercans doing killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan, what are they doing killing anyone in Afghanistan, indeed, what are they doing in Afghanistan? It is in answering the last part of that question in particular that we will quickly come to the conclusion that they are in Afghanistan to try to facilitate their global hegemony and if innocent men, women and children die along the way then so be it and there is always the "deeply, deeply regret" and "used as human shields" cards to keep the disgusting enterprise on track.
1 http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/05/20095672330997508.html

Zionist lobby attacks tenured professor

The Anti-Defamation League, which is basically a mouthpiece for the Israeli government, is now getting its claws into another academic, William I. Robinson, a sociology professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, and what did William do? It would appear that the silly man not only criticised Israel but he actually likened the recent behaviour of the Israelis in Gaza to some of the abuses perpetrated by the Nazis. Our good man actually went so far as to draw a comparison between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto; the comparison being that in both, there was no escape for the persecuted.(1) Silly, silly Billy, what were you thinking? You cannot run around criticising Israel like that and you most certainly cannot run around drawing comparisons between 'Zionistan' and the '3rd Reich' and if you do Billy, you really are a silly Billy.
Joking aside, however, what appears to have transpired is that our zany zionists are becoming quite open about their zany "Weltanschauung"; a "Weltanschauung" that equates any criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism and in a recent interview silly Billy has said, that they haven't even accused him of "doing anything which we would consider anti-Semitism - discrimination against Jews, against the Jewish religion and so forth - they said openly and outright that he had introduced material which criticised the state of Israel and that equals anti-Semitism."(2) Well, there we have it folks, it is sort of official; anyone who criticises a state which is built on someone else's land, which maims and murders as it pleases, which practices apartheid and occupies land illegally, while continuing to ethnically cleanse that occupied land, is an anti-Semitic and if they are not an anti-Semitic, then they are a "self-hating Jew". Don't these people understand that their behaviour is completely unacceptable, that it is beyond the pale, that it is an affront to that western civilisation that they claim to be a part of?
1 http://sb4af.wordpress.com/
2 http://counterpunch.com/henwood04292009.html

AIPAC

Yesterday, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, began it's annual conference in Washington just as the Justice Department was withdrawing espionage charges against Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, two former AIPAC employees. Now, with Lawrence Franklin, an ex-Pentagon employee, serving a long prison sentence for giving classified documents to AIPAC and with a lot of evidence around to corroborate that Mr Rosen and Mr Weisman then passed the information that they had received onto the Israeli government, you might think that the US government would be acting as a sovereign state has to act in such a situation and that not only should these two characters be up in front of a judge but that there should be a thorough investigation into the activities of AIPAC.(1) An investigation that might even result in the organisations closure. Or can you imagine what might happen if some information was passed from the Pentagon to an American Arab organistation that then passed it onto Egypt or Jordan or Saudi Arabia or, horrors of horrors, the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, this is different, this is AIPAC and not only are charges against the two ex-employees of the organisation dropped, but we even have Vice President Bidden and Senator John Kerry turning up as speakers at the organisation's annual conference, where they can, no doubt, make their shitty contribution to the mass of verbal diarrhoea that the conference is going to be awash with and, on that note, the speeches have already begun with the Israeli President, Shimon Peres, saying, ""Benjamin Netanyahu was at one time my political opponent, today, he is my prime minister. He knows history and wants to make history. In our tradition, making history is making peace, and I am sure that peace is his priority."(2) It really is a mad, mad, world!
1 http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/4/headlines#7
2 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1082939.html

The Tel Aviv Terrorist

"Good is bad", "bad is good", "2 + 2 = 5" and our "newspeakers" down Zionistan way appear to have shot themselves in the foot today with the 'Jerusalem Post' reporting that the stabbing of an IDF soldier was apparently a "terrorist attack". The stabbed soldier has been treated for a stab wound to his neck under his ear and is fully conscious.(1) Have I understood this correctly; the stabbed soldier is the victim of terrorism while the settlers continue to maraud, maim and murder with impunity? Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of victims of the IDF. Still, the "newspeakers" drivel is par for the course and nothing new here, but how did they know that he was attacked by a terrorist? Well, our "newspeakers" appear to shoot themselves in the foot when they corroborate their nonsense with a statement to the effect that the "terrorist" who fled had "a Middle Eastern complexion".(2) Well, what a surprise, here we have a man with a Middle Eastern complexion, in the Middle East of all places. Might that not imply that he is native to the area? Well, normally yes but not in this part of the Middle East, which the "newspeakers" are already telling us, isn't really the Middle East.
1 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1239710850258&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
2 ibid

Bernd Posselt

Now, as far as I can remember, election posters in the United Kingdom don't normally include a visual representation of the local candidate. No, I am sure that is correct because it is always something that I find quite ridiculous in Germany. There you are driving along the road when, all of a sudden, you are distracted by some silly, slimy, smug, smirking face and you afford yourself a smile and a snigger and almost lose control of your car and I wonder why they have such an awful visual representation if they really want to attract votes. Anyway, today I was plodding through Schwabing, when I was confronted with a certain Bernd Posselt, a "Christliche-Soziale Union" (CSU) candidate for the Brussels parliament and, once again, I begun to chew the cud on why they would want all and sundry to actually see this guy's face and then it dawned on me that maybe he actually represents "das Volk", and maybe there a lot of potential voters out there who can identify with and relate to the image on the poster. Now, if that really is so, it would follow logically that Bernd Posselt provides a visual representation of a large section of the Bavarian electorate, or in other words, Bernd is a "waschechter Bayer" (a typical Bavarian) so, while we should never only think in terms of stereotypes, it might be worthwhile letting all of you see what a typical Bavarian looks like and I can only plead in Munich's favour that the majority of the people in that wonderful city don't look like Bernd and, indeed, most of them are either atypical Bavarians or they are not even from Bavaria. Still, I am sure there will be enough "clones" to ensure that the Belgian capital gets to see Bernd on tour.
The photo shows Bernd Posselt who will soon be sitting in the Brussels parliament for the CSU.

May Day

There is certainly some sense in Marx's historical development thesis, which goes something like; from feudalism to capitalism to socialism and that would seem to suggest that for socialism to come into its ascendency society would have had to have moved onto the capitalist stage of development. Yes, it would appear that the brave new world envisaged by Marxists suffered a major setback during the 1919-20 revolutions in Europe. The Soviet Union, which had never had an industrial revolution and, therefore, lacked a conscious, educated industrial proletariat sort of summersaulted the stages in Marx's theory and went onto cultivate that wonderful stalinist concept of "socialism in one country", a model which is better portrayed by George Orwell's '1984' than it is in any of Charlie's writings, and then we had China!
While living in China I was all too aware of being in just about one of the most unsocialist countries that I had personally experienced. Alright, not quite as bad as Oman or Bahrain, admitted. However, there they are, the little men at the gates of your compound saluting the cars of some big fat guy in his car and there are 900 million or so, living in shit, while the mob with the "guanxi" live their lives on the gravy train. China, a country where everyone knows his or her place, and while it has, no doubt, improved a bit since the days of Cíxǐ Tàihòu, the Empress Dowager, it is, to put it mildly, not really what a working class Glaswegian means when he talks about socialism.
Still, even in China they have got their "May Day" and it is that time of the year again when the CCP extols the virtues of the class they are supposed to represent and on browsing the 'China Daily' I can see that they are doing their usual propoganda job. There was one particular picture of migrant workers in Yinchaun, the capital of the Ningxia Hui province in the north of the country and even in, this, what the Chinese officially refer to as,"a second tier city", these workers, deprived of the “hukou” that residential permit which would give them equal rights in the place where they are forced to eek out their living, empitomise a China that reminds me more of Orwell's, "all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others" than of that socialist society that, for me, must still be on the agenda.
The picture shows migrant workers in Yinchaun celebrating their pay rise to 1,000 rmb a month.