Author: StrayRoots

Max Blumenthal gives the most thorough rundown, of Christopher Hitchens and his hypocracy that I have ever seen.

The Blog | Max Blumenthal: Hitchens Tries S&M | The Huffington Post: “Take Hitchen’s July 12, 2001 column for the Nation magazine eulogizing Israeli peace activist Israel Shahak. Here, Hitchens makes practically the same points he condemns Sheehan for supposedly making (sentiments that I don’t necessarily disagree with, but which are nonetheless hypocritical for Hitchens to now denounce):

Crossposted from Dameocrat Blog

Only the other day, I read some sanguinary proclamation from the rabbinical commander of the Shas party, Ovadia Yosef, himself much sought after by both Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. It was a vulgar demand for the holy extermination of non-Jews; the vilest effusions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad would have been hard-pressed to match it. The man wants a dictatorial theocracy for Jews and helotry or expulsion for the Palestinians, and he sees (as Shahak did in reverse) the connection. This is not a detail; Yosef’s government receives an enormous US subsidy, and his intended victims live (and die, every day) under a Pax Americana.

Hitchens’ expressed his opinion of Zionism more explicitly in a barely coherent November 14, 2001 op-ed for the Guardian, called ‘Ha, ha, ha to the pacifists.’ Accusing ‘the peaceniks’ of harboring a conciliatory attitude towards radical Islamic terrorists, Hitchens wrote:

    Come Yom Kippur I tend to step up my scornful remarks about Zionism. Whatever happened to the robust secularism that used to help characterise the left? And why is it suddenly only the injured feelings of Muslims that count?

Hitchens criticism of Sheehan is, of course, rooted in his role as a Hoover Institute-funded cheerleader for the failed policies of his newfound neocon fantasist friends. If we harken back to the days of the Clinton administration, however, we’ll see how Hitchens took a decidedly different tack on US foreign policy.”

As the dailykos version of the story read:  Radical Cleric issues fatwa to kill the President! Crossposted from Dameocrat Blog

FOXNews.com – U.S. & World – Robertson Calls for Chavez’s Assassination: “VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson (search) suggested on-air that American operatives assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (search) to stop his country from becoming ‘a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.’

We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability,’ Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network’s ‘The 700 Club.’

‘We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator,’ he continued. ‘It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.

Chavez has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush (search), accusing the United States of conspiring to topple his government and possibly backing plots to assassinate him. U.S. officials have called the accusations ridiculous.

‘You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it,’ Robertson said. ‘It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war … and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.'”

There are several problems with this proposal.

1)One Chavez isn’t a dictator. He has been elected three times already. The last time was a recall election monitored by the Carter Center, which Jimmy Cater himself declared legimate. He won by close to 60% of the vote. Unlike Ohio 2004 and Florida 2000, the devices used in this election left a paper trail.

2)The coup wasn’t popular. If it was Chavez wouldn’t have won the recall that occured after the coup. Also isn’t is stupid to have a coup when you can just recall someone who is unpopular? Maybe the reason they had a coup was because they knew the people weren’t really on their side?

3)Chavez has only threatened to stop oil shipments if there is an attempt on his life. His successors are actually the ones that vowed to do this. By threatening Chavez, you are making this event more likely. You are also proving him absolutely right in his fear that the US is trying to kill him.

4)Isn’t Robertson suppose to believe in the 10 commandments.  You know, “Thou shall not kill!  Though shall not steal!  Though shall not lie!” Looks to me like you have broken several here Pat!  You are killing Chavez, just because he wants to govern his own country and because you want to take his oil instead of having to buy it lawfully, and you are lying to justify it.  You are nothing but a big time thug Pat!

Because of this argument you Pat, have actually convinced me of the necessity of putting the 10 commandments up in the classrooms of all the red states!

Spc. Carrie L.French, 19

That’s right 43 lost their lives for rule by the clerics. We will install “Iranian style Democracy”.  Islam will now be the primary source of law in the Constitution as oppose to a source. The clerics will dominate family law, divorce, inheritance and child custody.  Women won’t have a secular alternative.  All laws in Iraq can be nullified by the Clerics under the Constitution. The administration is twisting arms for this atrocity.

Crossposted fromDameocrat Blog

According to the Guardian

There are currently 138,000 US troops in Iraq, including 25,000 marines. President Bush has repeatedly denied that the US intends to “cut and run”, leaving Iraq to the insurgents. “Our troops know that they’re fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere to protect their fellow Americans from a savage enemy,” the president said yesterday in his weekly radio address.

Conservative Shias, dominant in the Iraqi government, had clashed with Kurds and other minorities who wanted Islam to be “a” rather than “the” main source of law.

According to Kurdish and Sunni negotiators, the US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, proposed that Islam be named “a primary source” and supported a wording which would give clerics authority in civil matters such as divorce, marriage and inheritance.

If approved, critics say that the proposals would erode women’s rights and other freedoms enshrined under existing laws. “We understand the Americans have sided with the Shias. It’s shocking. It doesn’t fit with American values,” an unnamed Kurdish negotiator told Reuters. “They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state.”

Dozens of women gathered in central Baghdad yesterday to protest against what the organiser, Yanar Mohammad, feared would be a “fascist, nationalist and Islamist” constitution. “We are fighting to avoid becoming second class citizens,” she said.

A Bush supporter had this to say on MTP.

GERECHT: I think it’s important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States … women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we’d all be thrilled. I mean, women’s social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy. We hope they’re there. I think they will be there. But I think we need to put this into perspective.

Excuse me, but the American constitution was changable because it was not beholden to religious law. Iraqi women will have to arm themselves and overthrow the government to get change.

Crossposted from Dameocrat Blog

This stuff is starting to get into the proBush parts of the media.

Bush will `go on with life’: “‘But,’ he added, ‘I think it’s also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life.’

The comments came prior to a bike ride on the ranch with journalists and aides. It also came as the crowd of protesters grew in support of Sheehan, the California mother who came here Aug. 6 demanding to talk to Bush about the death of her son Casey. Sheehan arrived earlier in the week with about a half dozen supporters. As of yesterday (Saturday) there were about 300 anti-war protesters and approximately 100 people supporting the Bush Administration. In addition to the two-hour bike ride, Bush’s Saturday schedule included an evening Little League Baseball playoff game, a lunch meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a nap, some fishing and some reading. ‘I think the people want the president to be in a position to make good, crisp decisions and to stay healthy,’ he said when asked about bike riding while a grieving mom wanted to speak with him. ‘And part of my being is to be outside exercising.’

On Friday, Bush’s motorcade drove by the protest site en route to a Republican fund-raising event at a nearby ranch.

As Bush rolled by, Sheehan held a sign that said, ‘Why do you make time for donors and not for me?'”

This last part says it all.  Remember, this stuff is now being reported in the overwhelmingly probush Southern media!

This headline should read “Liberals stupidly allow Bush to frame aids education as pro-sex trafficking.

Crossposted from Dameocrat Blog
   

Over 100 Groups Urge President to Enforce Anti-Prostitution Policy to Aid Sexually Exploited Women and Children: “diet diet

    News at eDiets relations

    Over 100 Groups Urge President to Enforce Anti-Prostitution Policy to Aid Sexually Exploited Women and Children

    WASHINGTON, Aug 8, 2005 (U.S. Newswire via COMTEX) — In a joint letter to President Bush, over 100 women’s, health and policy organizations have urged him to protect victims of human trafficking and ‘stand firm on legislation and policies that require groups receiving certain federal grants to provide written assurance that they oppose prostitution.’

    The letter brings into sharp focus a contentious debate over how to best aid prostituted persons and sex trafficking victims. Some governments and groups favor the so-called ‘harm reduction’ approach that emphasizes supplying sexually exploited persons with condoms and trying to teach negotiating skills. The U.S. government instead promotes an abolitionist approach that opposes prostitution as inherently harmful and degrading and actively supports the rescue and restoration of sexually exploited individuals, most of whom are women and children.

    The U.S. policy-supporting letter was delivered by the Christian Medical Association ( CMA, http://www.cmda.org ) to President Bush’s domestic policy advisor, Claude Allen. The letter counters the contentions of some activist groups, expressed in a letter sent to Mr. Bush in May, calling for the President not to enforce the anti-prostitution pledge policy, which was passed by Congress (the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003) and signed into law.

    Consistent with that law, President Bush issued a National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD-22) that asserted, ‘Our Policy is based on an abolitionist approach to trafficking in persons… . The United States Government opposes prostitution and any related activities, including pimping, pandering, or maintaining brothels as contributing to the phenomenon of trafficking in persons.'”

 

Of coarse the harm reduction approach in no way endorses sex trafficking, but by focusing on legalization, rather than the fact that Bush isn’t allowing them to give information about safe sex, the people who oppose Bush on this make it look that way.

A little post on the undercovered events taking place in Israel right now. This involves the disengagement protests at a place called Kfar Maimon. Crossposted from Dameocrat Blog

Haaretz – Israel News – At Kfar Maimon the State of the Faithful was founded: “On Wednesday morning many scores of them listened to a lesson by Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira, the head of the hesder yeshiva (combined Torah study and military service program) in Ramat Gan and one of the most charismatic figures in the eyes of the national religious youth, who explained the parallel between the individual and the nation. According to Hasidic thought, he said, the individual is made up of the anima (the physiological aspect, which is common to all animals), the spirit (the abilities that are common to all human beings) and the soul (the spiritual quality that exists only in Jews). The anima comes to the individual at birth, whereas the spirit enters him only when he reaches the age of mitzvoth (the age of commandment observance, 13 for males). The difficulty of reconciling these forces is the reason for tshe self-destructive tendencies in adolescence. The same development exists in the collective, explained Shapira. The national organism has an ‘anima’ – it is the state. The state has to see to the material needs of the nation. The state was born in 1948, but the second stage of its development occurred in the Six-Day War. The connection to the Divine presence opened the heart to the ‘spirit,’ which is supposed to enter into the existing political structures, which are equivalent to the anima. And here is the rub: He is not disappointed with Sharon, as he has no faith in any secular leader. ‘I do not believe in a leader who does not come from the beit midrash (religious study house). There cannot be a man of the anima who leads the Jewish people in the era of the spirit. The spirit can come only from the beit midrash.’ The difficulties that the Jewish people have faced are stages of maturation, of the birth of the spirit from within the anima, which also entail the danger of confusion and self-destructive tendencies. The disengagement plan is an example of this.

The unwillingness to recognize a secular leadership and the demand for a ‘believing’ leadership were expressed in the past in groups like Moshe Feiglin’s Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish leadership). Now, with the disappointment with Sharon and the secular right as a whole, this line is gathering momentum, and similar things were heard at Kfar Maimon from rabbis like Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the rabbi of Safed.

As one of the settlement rabbis said to me, ‘It could be that we will lose this battle (for Gush Katif), but we will certainly win the whole fight.’ The big fight is for hegemony in the state, and religious Zionism is intending to take the place of secular Zionism, which has become tired and has collapsed.”

I think it should be clear to everyone as of now that the settlers in Israel are religious extremists. Why the christian right in this country wants America to support a bunch of nutcases that don’t believe gentiles have souls is beyond me? Is Pat Robertson an honorary Jew or something? Granted he won’t admit Jews to heaven so the are bothers under the skin.

What is even more mysterious is why socalled Israeli Liberals have subsidized them so long. For that matter why do American liberals subsidize them?

I have often observed that there is an unspoken fight taking place between socalled liberal hawks and the peaceniks.  The Liberal Hawks have a preference for mostly Jewish and Christian fundamentalist (neoconservatives) fighting for the right of the settlers to live on the West Bank.  This requires ethnically cleansing or reservationizing the Palestinians. It also requires that the two state solution be abandoned.   The other side consists of peaceniks who unfortunately often side with muslim fundamenatalist. The muslim fundies may care about the Palestinians but they also want an Islamic caliphate, which is a theocracy no liberal should desire!

Most of the establishment Democratic Boards like Dailykos and Du are dominated by Liberal Hawks, and if you don’t automatically side with them and you think the settlers are terrible too, they try to purge you. Tom Friedman wants to create an enemies list specifically for people like us.   I recall a poster that wanted to purge anyone who posted from the right wing libertarian antiwar.com.  I just think both fundamentalisms are a threat.    I really do feel that the Israeli settlers are racist right wingers, but I also veiw Osama as a threat because he wants to create an Islamic Caliphate.  I opposed the war with Iraq, because it had nothing to do with Al Qaeda.  It was primarily pushed by the neocons in order to secure Iraq’s oil, and also because pro-Israel types viewed Iraq as a threat, and they felt they could force the Palestinians to submit to the settlements by conquering Iraq.  

I also completely supported the war in Afghanistan, because it was run by Al Qaeda and the Talbans.  The Talibans were truely terrible and as a feminist. I was appalled by them long before 9/11.   They would shoot women who walked the street without male company.  They would also kill women who worked, or women who went to male doctors. Women were not allowed to be doctors so women basically had no medical care if they got sick.  They also killed little girls that went to school because education had been made illegal for women. I do view this form of extremist Islam as taking adavantage of real muslim anger at the settlements, and I am scared of them.

The other absurdity of the Iraq war, is that now we have an Islamic fundamentalist Iraq.  Women will be less free under this “Islamic Democracy” than they were under Saddam.  

I just wish progressives would tell both fundamentalisms to fuck off.  Why should we have to take sides?

Crossposted from Dameocrat Blog

Columnist Christian Christiansen takes the Chicago Tribune’s Gary Marx to task for hypocrisy on the New Latin American network Telesur.

She is too nice in my view. This paper like most other mainstream outlets promoted the Iraq War an refused to criticize George W. Bush over it. It ignored the obvious lies and support the war through a pro war leaning editorial policy. The mainstream media in this country has no credibility, what so ever, when it comes to objectivity. In fact these slights at the new Telesur pretty obviously represent hawking the Bush administrations foriegn policy. That foreign policy includes hostility to social democratic regimes like Venezuela and Uraguay as well as authoritian Communist ones like Cuba. You can get put on Bush’s hit list for destruction for persuing the same policies as Roosevelt and Kennedy. Furthermore if the corporate media is so free to criticize the President how do you account for the purging of Dan Rather?

This corruption by corporate money sadly extends to the modern Democratic Party, so many Democrats will parrot the antiChavez baloney as well.

Crossposted from Dameocrat Blog! Bob Herbert makes some very interesting observations on GOP chairman Ken Mehlman’s apology for the “Southern Strategy”.  This is more extensively linked on my blog. I can’t figure out how to use html here, without getting errors.

The “Southern Strategy” is a GOP effort began in the 1960s by Republican politicians like Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, to try and attract disaffected whites to the Republican party, by taking advantage of their anger and the “Civil Rights” movement. It was largely successful in the South. The South was known as the Solid South because it voted Democratic all in lockstep every Presidential election from the Reconstruction onward. This was largely because of a reactionary pro-Segregation Wing of Democrats known formally as the Dixiecrats.

Senator Strom Thurmond, challenged the Presidential candidacy of Harry Truman as a Dixiecrat in 1948. He ran under the banner “Segregation Now! Segregation Tomorrow! Segregation Forever!” He also used the n-word many times in his speeches.

Later it turned out Thurmond had fathered a black child, as a teenager in the 1920s. The amnesiac press failed to make note of this in his obituaries. He had lead one of the longest filibusters in Senate history to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957″. In the 1960s he resigned from the Democratic Party and joined the Republicans in protest of Lyndon Johnson’s support of “The Civil Rights Act of 1964”. This is when. Goldwater and Nixon started openly courting the Dixiecrats, and it has been a Republican tradition up to this very day. Now it is the Solid South because it votes Republican. This is largely because of the “Southern Strategy”

Crossposted from the Dameocrat Blog! Congressman Apologizes for Hitler Remark – Yahoo! News: “

The New Jersey Republican made the remark on a radio talk show this past week, describing his recent visit to the Naval Base in Cuba. Muslim terrorists, he said, were more evil than Hitler.

‘Hitler, in his philosophy, was, you know, he hated Jews, he was murdering Jews, and there were some people he liked. But he never went to the level that these people are going to,’ LoBiondo said.

A caller objected to the statement only a few minutes later.

‘You’re right. You’re right. I was wrong. I should not have used that and I apologize,’ LoBiondo responded.”

Sounds like excessive use of the word Nazi, wasn’t the only, or most important reason this statement was stupid. He clearly doesn’t believe in the concept of “innocent until proven guilty”. He just states outright that the suspects are terrorists. It has already been shown numerous times that many of the detainees at Guantanamo were found innocent and released. It has been shown in numerous articles that many of the current detainees are probably innocent, but they are not being given trials, let alone fair trials. Torture can make people confess to things they didn’t do. This is why the constitution guarantees the right to a fair and speedy trial, and the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. In Congressmen LoBiondo’s head such Constitutional principles are unimportant when we are dealing with Arabs! Excessive metaphor usage, is not that league!