•TPC•

Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

10/7/07

On September 25, 2007 President Bush announced “new” sanctions against the military government of Burma, symbolically joining hands with tens of thousands of protesters in the streets of Yangon and challenging the United Nations to join him in a broader “mission of liberation.”

However, as I see it, the older sanctions imposed by the USA and some western countries did not really bite deep into the skin of the SPDC regime that is ruling Burma. There is also crass hypocrisy in how the sanctions have thus far been imposed by the Bush Administration. A multi-national oil company like Chevron was apparently exempted from adhering to the sanction rule book and is allowed to do business as usual in the oil and gas exploration sector with the SPDC.

Why this selective application for an oil company? Well, we don’t have to be reminded that oil is important to the trio - Bush, Cheney & Rice – all linked with the oil industry before joining the Administration. As is also obvious now, it was not the WMD but the control of the oil fields in Iraq that was the primary motivation for why they invaded Iraq. [And of course, there are other reasons too, namely, making the region ‘secure’ for the rogue state - Israel.] I doubt that the Bush Administration is unaware that the Chevron-money goes directly to the pockets of the SPDC regime, providing the necessary blood infusion that it needs to function. [But then again, we are continuously reminded by our Wall Street pundits that if Chevron does not do business, there are many other non-American companies willing to close the deal with the Myanmar regime! They argue: why should a U.S. company suffer the brunt of unfair trading or business practices?] So, if the Bush Administration wants it to be taken seriously, it must go beyond the hollow rhetoric to imposing biting sanctions to isolate the hated regime.

Continue Reading »

Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org

“For certain members of our armed forces, there was a message delivered to them somehow, that somehow their Iraqi prisoners were subhuman.”

By Steven Jonas

10/7/07

Recently, a fascinating photo album was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. It was found by a U.S. counterintelligence officer in an abandoned apartment in Frankfurt, Germany after the end of World War II in 1945. (This meant that whoever assembled the book took it with them as they fled the camp before it was liberated by the Red Army in February 1945.) He kept it hidden away all of these years. It was sent to the Museum in December 2006. It is essentially a scrap book of photos of SS male and female officers and ranks at play outside Auschwitz in 1944. (Here is a short slide show with narrative.)

The photos show these people having picnic lunches, engaging in choral singing, playing with their dogs, gathering for smiling group photos, and smoking cigarettes (even though at Hitler’s behest, the Nazis had instituted the world’s first comprehensive anti-smoking campaign in Germany in the 1930s. And there you thought that all German armed forces members always followed orders.) They even decorated Christmas trees (after all, the slogan “Gott mit Uns” was on their belt buckles). And all this time, thousands of Jews and other nationalities were being gassed and burned at the camp every day. Talk about the banality of evil.

Continue Reading »

Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to JMiller@bestcyrano.org 

By Ramzy Baroud

8/4/7

The name of Alberto Gonzales is rapidly becoming synonymous with all that has gone wrong under the Bush administration. Repeated media discussions of the US Secretary of State in the most contentious tones have served to lay the blame for all the ailments that infected American democracy under Bush squarely on one man’s shoulders.

President Bush himself, Gonzales’ loyal boss, friend and the hand behind all the stunts and tricks that Gonzales so indefatigably performed to defend and justify the unjustifiable, remains immune to any meaningful criticism.

Bush is well known for his habit of awarding sensitive posts to old friends, as if the prime objective of the president of the United States is to protect the administration’s secrets and rubber stamp whatever compulsive policies he and his self-serving neoconservative associates concoct. Although appointed to the post in February 2005, Gonzales has been a member of Bush’s team for years; he served as Bush’s General Counsel from 1994 to 1997, when the president was governor of Texas. Then, he served as Secretary of State for Texas for two years, before going on to join the state’s Supreme Court. Finally he worked with Bush again for five consecutive years as White House Counsel. Considering the president’s reputation of favouritism and staunch loyalty to those faithful to him, Gonzales’ ascension to the 80th Attorney General of the United States, replacing John Ashcroft, only seemed a natural progression.

Continue Reading »

NOTICE TO OUR READERS: The editors will be most grateful for your attention at the end of this feature. Thank you.

“Are the images of who was left to drown or starve during Hurricane Katrina so easily forgotten? At that time racial disparity stood clearly in front of the eyes of every person who turned on a television.”

By Rowan Wolf

CJO’s Avenger

6/30/07

Well, SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) has dealt yet another “conservative” blow to the nation. This time by essentially overturning Brown vs the Board of Education. Schools are still expected to achieve racial “diversity.” However, accomplishing racial integration is very difficult if it is unconstitutional to use race as a criteria. Justice Roberts argument was:

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” (NY Times, 6/28/07)

Roberts’ statement is a tautological argument that is based on a false premise - that race would not be an issue if we did not attempt struggle against institutionalized racism. His quote is reflective of the bumper sticker political analysis which has become all too familiar. However, the assumption of a color blind society, which is enforcing discrimination through attempts at racial integration, is faulty to the point of criminality.

What the Bush administration, “conservatives,” and now Bush’s Court, are attempting is the elimination of civil rights and affirmative action advancements over the last 50 years. Why? Is it because they do not want a society with increasing levels of equality and participation? Do they want a society of peasants and patricians? Do they oppose a representative democracy, but support a feudal government run by a moneyed (white) elite?

Roberts’ trite argument plays well to the mythology of race and privilege in the United States. The rhetoric - particularly now - is that everyone in the U.S. is equal, and there is no structured inequality. Race is a non-issue which we dealt with long ago. Race-based policies and considerations are not “fair” to whites, and place whites at a disadvantage. This is sometimes ridiculously referred to as “reverse” discrimination. Of course there is no acknowledgment that without the body of legislation and policy under the umbrella of “affirmative action,” whites could not argue they had been discriminated against. The legislation refers to “race” - not as confined to people of color, but also to whites.

The often posed solution is to use socioeconomic status, rather than race, as a basis for social policy and integration. The argument is that class is the only real divider after all. Unfortunately, that is a false argument.

There is no proxy for race in the United States. Race is its own system of inequality, though it is certainly reinforced by social class. That reinforcement is not accidental - but structured into social policy. Social policy is, after all, a form of social engineering.

The United States started out with the restriction of citizenship to whites. At that time citizenship carried with it the right to own property, to testify in court, to access public education and public services - and eventually - the right to vote. These privileges of citizenship were granted largely on the basis of race - not social class. However, they certainly had (and continue to have) social class implications. These policies gave whites a social class advantage which was passed down from generation to generation. It facilitated an opportunity path for whites that did not exist (or was significantly restricted) for those who were deemed “not white.”

The institutionalization of race, and race separate policies, continued for more than two centuries, and they continue today. Unimaginably, we are still fighting voting rights and gerrymandering based on race in 2007 (among a myriad of other race-based disparate impacts). Are the images of who was left to drown or starve during Hurricane Katrina so easily forgotten? At that time racial disparity stood clearly in front of the eyes of every person who turned on a television. Also remember, that very quickly the interpretation was put forward that this was not about “race,” but social class. The dominant white population is much more comfortable talking about social class (which is largely perceived as an “individual” issue) than about race - where we must examine the costs of racial privilege.

Race and social class intertwine, they are not the same. While there are more poor who are white than any other racial group, whites are disproportionately under represented in the ranks of the poor. Whites are also dramatically over represented in the ranks of the middle class, and even more so in the upper class. This is largely due to race based policies that subsidized the accumulation of wealth (most significantly with home ownership) for whites, while denying that access to those who were not white.

So what does all of this have to do with the Supreme Court ruling regarding education? Education is strongly related to people’s ability to participate and advance in the social class environment in the US (though this is changing). Without equal access to education the doors of social class mobility once more start to close. Brown vs Board of Education ruled that there was no legality or validity to “separate but equal.” The decision to desegregate public education was not to make a more “diverse” environment, but to equalize the playing field for social class participation.

There has been a terrible transformation in education systems’ arguments about the importance of racial and cultural diversity to education. While those arguments are valid, it is not why we integrated schools. Diversity in education (race, culture, age, class, sex, sexual orientation, religion, etc) is tremendously valuable for all kinds of reasons, Brown was not about the value of diversity. It was about addressing institutionalized inequality based on race.

That fundamental inequality based on race has not been resolved. Look at test scores, high school completion rates, college entrance and graduation rates or even the status and reputation of different school districts. All show there are significant racial divides. Racial integration is not a relic of some bygone day. In our schools; in our neighborhoods; in our health and infant mortality; in the work force; race still stands as hugely significant to social and personal outcomes.

Contrary to the rhetorical argument put forward by Roberts, the promoter of discrimination is not efforts to have schools that mirror the racial demographics of their districts and population. The discrimination happens at virtually every level of social interaction and organization. It is reinforced by racial segregation which fosters the mythology of stereotypes, and the reality of disparate economic opportunity. Education (and not simply K-12 education) is an important component of social maintenance and change. Race and social class inequality are principal among the systems being maintained or changed.

The most common example of past in present discrimination is: segregated neighborhoods lead to segregated schools lead to segregated job opportunities. We have done a rather pathetic job of changing housing segregation (both in terms of race and class) which is why integration in education becomes monumentally important.

The 5-4 decision by the Roberts court reversed the decisions of two appellate courts. It has also virtually reversed Brown vs the Board of Education -one of the most important court decisions impacting racial equality in the United States.

One might wonder what happened to both Roberts’ and Alito’s highly touted respect for stare decisis - legal precedent (see end notes). Justice Breyer issued a stinging rebuke which is pertinent and hopefully not prophetic: “It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much.” In regard to the importance of precedent, he stated: ““It is my firm conviction that no member of the court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today’s decision.” This pretty much rules out any confusion over the context and intent of Brown v. Board of Education.

END NOTES
Supreme Court Cases involved: Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association v. Brentwood Academy and Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 et al.

A SPECIAL MESSAGE TO OUR READERS.

For over two years now, Thomas Paine’s Corner has been a powerful and unwavering voice for a courageous and badly needed agenda for change. We have consistently delivered hard-hitting and insightful commentary, polemics, and analysis in our persistent efforts to persuade, educate, and inspire, and serve as a discriminating but generous platform for voices from many points of view with one thing in common: their spiritual honesty and quality of thinking.
•
Aside from the caliber of its content, Thomas Paine’s Corner’s strength is that there are no advertisers or corporations to exercise de facto censorship or orchestrate our agenda. We aim to keep it that way and we need your help!
•
As a semi-autonomous section of the multi-faceted, thoroughly comprehensive, and highly prestigious Cyrano’s Journal Online, we share Cyrano’s passion for winning the battle of communications against systemic lies, an act which is essential to attaining social and environmental justice. To help us achieve that goal, Cyrano’s Journal, besides its regular editorial pages, intends to begin producing editorial videos to expose the lack of proper context, ahistoricalism, excessive over-emphasis on inane events, and outright lies the corporate media, and in particular television, present to you and your family as a steady diet of pernicious intellectual junk food. This will be an expensive under-taking and there will be no grants forthcoming from the likes of the American Enterprise Institute, the Coors or Heritage Foundation. You can be sure of that!
•
As Greek mythology has it, the powerful are frequently defeated by their own hubris, and that’s precisely what we are witnessing today. Our rotten-to-the-core, usurping plutocracy has become so overtly and arrogantly corrupt that our patience has now reached its generous limit, and the membrane of America’s collective consciousness is about to burst. This will result in a significant restructuring of our socioeconomic and political environments, we hope (and must make sure) for the better. Considering what is at stake in the world today, Cyrano’s Journal and Thomas Paine’s Corner want to accelerate the arrival of that new day, and its promise of a new, truly well organized, kind, and honest civilization.
•
Assisting us in our cause is as simple as clicking on the PayPal button below and exercising the power of your wallet. No matter how large or how small, we thank you in advance for your donation! If you are serious about our struggle for a new society, please don’t put it off. Let us hear from you today.
•

Jason Miller
Associate Editor, Cyrano’s Journal Online, and Editorial Director, Thomas Paine’s Corner.
Patrice Greanville, Editor in Chief, Cyrano’s Journal Online

NOTICE TO OUR READERS: The editors will be most grateful for your attention at the end of this feature. Thank you.

“Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, has no intention of stepping down and responded at length live on Al-Jazeera rejecting Abbas’ “hasty” moves saying 96% of Palestinians support a unity government as the best chance for peace and security. He affirmed his democratically elected government would continue functioning and maintain law and order.”

By Stephen Lendman

6/26/07

In 1984 (a year of Orwellian significance), activist and media and social critic Edward Herman wrote one of his many important books titled “Demonstration Elections.” In it, he analyzed the US-staged elections in the 1960s in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam and the 1982 one in El Salvador. In the book’s Orwellian glossary of terms, he defined the process as “A circus held in a client state to assure the population of the home country that their intrusion is well received. The results are guaranteed by an adequate supply of bullets provided in advance (and freely used as necessary to achieve the desired outcome).”

This writer calls this ugly business “democracy-engineering, American-style” backed by force to win approval of a rigged process people would never accept another way. Noam Chomsky refers to the notion of “Keeping the Rabble in Line,” the title of one of his many books. It can be through soft or hard methods to assure the public goes along with what governments want imposed.

Herman’s main theme was that “elections held under conditions of military occupation and extensive pre-election ‘pacification’ ” aren’t free at all but aim to get an occupying force’s puppet choice accepted by the people it’s installed to rule with influence wielded more by bullets than ballots to create “stability.” Herman defines that term, too, as “a political arrangement free of open warfare and satisfactory to our interests.” By that he means the “rabble” is cowed, induced or pummeled into submission.

Enter the dominant media stepping up to support the effort as lead cheerleader for a process hard to sell without heavy lifting convincing that what government is doing is for the common good. Never mind it isn’t and that destroying democracy and the will of the people to resist are the real aims. Herman’s theme works the same way today, and it’s in play now in occupied Palestine. The difference discussed below is that the US and Israel tried running a “demonstration election” there in January, 2006, but it failed. The people didn’t cooperate and the “wrong” party won.

Imperial powers never accept defeat and attempted to subvert and crush the democratically elected Hamas government ever since because it’s too democratic and refuses to be Israel’s enforcer. So anti-Hamas efforts started off by labeling it a “terrorist” organization. That was followed by political and economic isolation, cutting off all essential aid, open conflict, and on June 17 brazenly installing an illegitimate “demonstration government” with Palestinian quisling President Mahmoud Abbas illegally dismissing the elected government and appointing an “emergency” one. All this is discussed in detail below.

Imposed Illegitimate “Demonstration” Government in Palestine

The beleaguered Palestinians are one of the world’s most victimized peoples of justice delayed because it’s been so long denied them. Long under the Ottomans, they then had to endure imperial British mandate rule after WW I until it ended in May, 1948. Ever since, they’ve suffered intolerable hardships under brutal Israeli oppression and illegal occupation with little outside support to end it.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964 as a result and Yasser Arafat became its leader in 1969 to try. At first, it was militantly, then later through negotiation and international consensus. Nothing worked because a hard line Israeli - US nexus with Western and Arab state complicity prevented it. The predictable result was festering anger in the Palestinian Territories. They’ve been occupied since June, 1967 after Israel seized them in its long-planned six day war of aggression. The illegal occupation continues and Palestinian anger boiled over in two Intifadas, first in 1987, and ever since after Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit to the sacred Al Aqsa Mosque in September, 2000.

By January 25, 2006, Palestinians had enough of Fatah’s institutionalized corruption and willingness to be Israel’s enforcer under the quisling governments of Yasser Arafat and his successor Mahmoud Abbas. They elected a dominant majority of Hamas members to Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) seats because they promised change and its candidates were untainted by corruption or willingness to serve as puppets of Israeli interests at the expense of their own people. They meant what they promised and proved it once in office, even offering to partner with Fatah at the outset in a spirit of unity. Under orders not to, Fatah refused. It guaranteed Israeli and Washington antagonism that erupted immediately once Hamas assumed office.

Palestinians endured a life and death survival struggle before the election and especially ever since, and they’ve been on their own doing it. After Hamas’ election victory, all desperately needed outside aid was cut off, and they’ve been mercilessly persecuted under repressive Israeli rule. They’ve also been attacked viciously and relentlessly by the world’s fourth most powerful military (IDF forces and enlisted Fatah-led paramilitary death squads) with only light and crude weapons and their spirit to endure and fight back.

Hamas - From Its Charter and How It Governs

Hamas in Arabic means courage and bravery. It’s also an abbreviation of the Arabic words meaning Islamic Resistance Movement. It was formed in 1987 during the first Intifada and early on was supported by Israel to counter Arafat’s PLO the Jewish state opposed at the time. Ever since, it’s been an effective resistance movement against repression and occupation providing essential social services like medical clinics; education, including centers for women; free meals for children; financial and technical help to those whose homes Israelis destroyed; aid to refugees in the camps; and setting up youth and sports clubs.

It also has the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, an elite military wing, headed by Abu Abieda and other forces it needs for self-defense and law enforcement. Included among them is the “special operational force” known as the Executive Force (Tanfithya) used on the streets for policing and security.

Israel, Washington and the West call Hamas’ political and social activities and its legitimate right to self-defense “terrorism” and tried to isolate and destroy its democratically elected government from birth. So far, they haven’t succeeded, or are likely to, because Hamas’ strongest assets are its will, readiness, and majority support from its people.

Hamas is a heterogeneous democratic Islamic Resistance Movement allied with all resistance fighters for the purpose of liberating Palestine from Israeli oppression and occupation. Its method of choice is through negotiation and international consensus, not war or terrorism as falsely portrayed through the dominant media. But it states in its charter it will fight for its rights if they can’t be gotten peacefully and rightfully blames Zionist Israel for its plight. They have plenty of evidence to prove it.

In its founding charter, it states it “draws its guidelines from Islam; derives from it its thinking, interpretations and views about existence, life and humanity; refers back to it for its conduct….adopts Islam as its way of life….Its ultimate goal is Islam, the Prophet its model, the Qur’an its Constitution….In the absence of Islam, conflict arises, oppression reigns, corruption is rampant and struggles and wars prevail….(The Movement) will do its utmost to….support….the weak, (and defend) all the oppressed.

(It) regards Nationalism (Wataniyya) as part….of the religious faith.” Peace initiatives and international conferences are rejected if their intention is renunciation of Palestinian land. It rejects Zionist intentions to destroy Palestinian society, its values and “wipe out Islam.” It describes itself as “a humane movement, which cares for human rights and is committed to the tolerance inherent in Islam as regards attitudes towards other religions. It is only hostile to those who are hostile towards it….(Under Islam) it is possible for the members of the three religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism to coexist in safety and security” as long as other religions “desist from struggling against Islam over sovereignty in this region.”

It believes “World Zionism and Imperial forces have been attempting….to push the Arab countries” to end conflict with Zionism “to isolate the Palestinian people.” It states its members don’t seek “fame….nor material gains, or social status….It will never set out against any Muslims….or non-Muslims who make peace with it.” Overall, Hamas has moderate political and religious views in contrast to militant hard line ones by ruling Israeli governments and the current one in Washington and other past ones.

It wants peace, equity and justice for all Palestinians while Israel and the Bush administration pursue an agenda of conflict, imperial domination and firm intention to deny Palestinians all rights they’re entitled to and the UN General Assembly adopted in December, 1948 in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This historic (non-binding) document guarantees them to everyone regardless of “race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status (including) the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

Hamas has always called for peace with Israel and is willing to negotiate on the basis of “hudnah” or temporary truce. Its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said Hamas was willing to end its struggle for the legitimate rights of Palestinian people “if the Zionists ended its occupation of Palestinian territories and stopped killing Palestinian women, children and innocent civilians.” As the elected Palestinian government, it declared a unilateral cease-fire with Israel, ended all suicide bombings, wants to negotiate, and is willing to recognize the Jewish state if Israel accepts and recognizes a Palestinian one. After being elected, it governed in good faith and agreed to a national unity government with Fatah to share power it democratically won to have alone. Israel, the US and West rejected all good faith efforts opting instead for a divide and conquer strategy.

A New Stage of Occupation for Palestinians

Israel, Washington and the West, pursued an aggressive agenda for months through armed conflict causing many deaths. From the start, Washington’s point man has been Iran-Contra criminal and now deputy national security adviser, Elliot Abrams. Documents have surfaced in Middle East capitals with evidence of Abrams’ role in an anti-Hamas “hard coup” strategy of violence and armed insurrection. They call for “maintain(ing) President Abbas and Fatah as the centre of (Palestinian) gravity….avoid accommodating (Hamas), undermine Hamas’ political status (and) strengthen the Palestinian president’s authority to be able to call and conduct early elections by autumn 2007.”

The document also called for Mahmoud Abbas to reject Saudi Arabia’s Mecca agreement leaving Hamas in charge. It further indicated $1.27 billion would be allocated to Abbas to add seven special battalions of 4700 new security forces to his 15,000 in place for “safeguard(ing) decisions such as dismissing the cabinet and forming an emergency government.”

This all played out violently on Gaza streets leading up to Hamas’ defeating opposition insurgent forces and seizing control of the Territory to establish law and order. As planned in Washington and Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Abbas then conspiratorially declared a “state of emergency.” He dismissed Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh and his national unity government replacing it with his own illegitimate “emergency” one.

It’s illegally headed by newly appointed prime minister Salam Fayyad whose electoral list posted a 2.4% showing in the January, 2006 PLC elections Hamas won overwhelmingly. Fayyad’s a pro-Western former IMF and World Bank official chosen by Washington and Jerusalem. His job is to do their bidding the way he served capital interests during his tenure at the international lending agencies. There he did it by forcing borrowers into debt slavery and their people into extreme poverty and deprivation for the sake of profit. That made him a western darling now promoted to enforce imperial domination on his people who want freedom and won’t likely tolerate his portfolio to deny it to them.

Abbas, Fayyad and others in the “emergency” government are shamelessly partnered with Israel and Washington as their coup d’etat-installed puppets working against the interests of their own people. They control the West Bank alone with Hamas firmly in charge of Gaza unless or until Israel intervenes which now seems likely. It suggests a repeat of last summer’s mass assault on the Territory and it’s sure to follow dreadful consequences for its near-defenseless people.

Plans to weaken and oust Hamas have been in place for months with Washington supplying the Abbas leadership tens of millions of dollars in aid and weapons. It’s gone to paramilitary militia death squad groups like Gaza-based Fatah warlord and another Israeli-Western darling Mohammed Dahlan (Fatah’s security chief now in the West Bank) and his “Preventative Security Force.” It’s part of a conspiratorial coup d’etat effort headed by traitorous Palestinians on the take for their own gain. Abbas is their nominal leader. Dahlan has the muscle and real power as it chief enforcer. All newly appointed members of Abbas’ sham “emergency government” share equal guilt. They’re junior quislings serving their puppet-masters in Jerusalem and Washington, but events are just beginning, the struggle is far from over, and its outcome very much uncertain.

Money and weapons will continue flowing into the West Bank, and from what Hamas already seized in a Gaza stash it found, it should be plenty. Unncovered were huge amounts of mounted machine guns, assault rifles, ammunition, armored personnel carriers, jeeps, armored cars and trucks, military-sized bulldozers, water cannon-dispersing trucks, large quantities of munitions including rocket-propelled grenades and launchers, explosives and various other supplies and equipment.

In total, it appears enough to equip a small army of fighters and may be worth as much as $400 million. It’s sure to be replaced so Fatah traitors are heavily armed to continue fighting Israel’s proxy war and acting as its West Bank enforcer against their own people. They almost certainly will resist with Hamas leading them courageously. It means Fatah’s hold on power is tenuous at best and Abbas’ fate equally shaky. His shameless act may in the end cost him all credibility, his job, and eventually make him liable to be held to account for his open betrayal of his own people.

Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, has no intention of stepping down and responded at length live on Al-Jazeera rejecting Abbas’ “hasty” moves saying 96% of Palestinians support a unity government as the best chance for peace and security. He affirmed his democratically elected government would continue functioning and maintain law and order. He also called for an end to conflict and a general amnesty. He stressed his fight is not with Fatah, but only with rogue traitorous elements in it like the dominant one headed by warlord Dahlan firmly doing Israel and Washington’s bidding.

He explained Hamas’ takeover was no coup and only a last resort attempt to end lawlessness, conflict and a Dahlan-led conspiracy against all Palestinians. He spoke of conciliation, unity, and conflict resolution to heal divisions in contrast to Abbas’ traitorous behavior as Israel and Washington’s pawn. He followed Israeli and Washington-dictated orders responding by denouncing Hamas as terrorists, refusing to negotiate, and saying he’ll (illegally as explained below) order new elections that will exclude Hamas.

At this stage, Hamas’ task is daunting as Haaretz reports. Israeli Labor Party Chairman, former prime minister, and new Olmert government defense minister Ehud Barak, plans to launch a large-scale military operation on Gaza in weeks. It will include 20,000 troops and an air assault aimed at destroying Hamas’ military capabilities quickly. Haaretz cited a close Barak aide saying Israel won’t allow a “Hamastan” in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and an attack on it is certain. Air attacks are now ongoing daily, border crossings are closed, and Israel cancelled Gaza’s commercial customs code. That cuts off essential supplies like food and medicines from entering the territory. Israel is now increasing its collective punishment against 1.4 million Palestinians already enduring unbearable hardships in what’s considered the world’s largest open-air prison with a population density three times that of Manhattan.

Israeli-Washington-Directed Fatah Declared Coup Illegal under Palestinian Law

Virginia Tilley is a South African-based political science professor. On June 18, her article appeared on The Electronic Intifada titled “Whose Coup, Exactly?” It documented in detail that according to the Basic Law of Palestine, serving as the PA’s constitution, “Abbas has violated a whole stream of Articles as well as the spirit of its checks and balances” limiting the power of the presidency. He “badly trashed numerous provisions” in it “with full US and Israeli support.” The Basic Law states:

– Under Article 45, the President can remove a Prime Minister but can only appoint a new one from the majority party - Hamas.

– Under Article 83, if the Prime Minister is removed, the serving (Hamas-led) Cabinet is to govern until the (Hamas-led) Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) appoints a new one.

– Only the PLC has authority to confirm a new Prime Minister and Cabinet.

– Under Article 43, in emergencies, the President can rule by decree subject to all decrees approved by the PLC.

– Under Article 113, in emergencies, the President cannot suspend the PLC.

– The Basic Law gives the President no power to call for early elections.

– No provision in the Basic Law authorizes an “emergency government.”

Conclusion: Abbas’ actions constitute a lawless coup d’etat usurpation of power, or as Tilley puts it: “The (Fatah) Fayyad government is the step-child of an extra-legal process with no democratic mandate. The whole manoeuvre is not precisely a palace coup,” but enough like one, in fact, to be one. She also notes “the diplomatic landscape is now in utter disarray” with the extra-legal Fayyad government only a “facsimile” of the real thing.

So far, its illegitimate creation hardly seems to matter to Israel, the US and European Union shamelessly flouting Palestinian and international law. They’re ending their political and economic PA West Bank (only) embargo to bolster Fatah and Abbas while continuing to isolate Hamas in Gaza. It’s an outrageous effort rewarding lawlessness and continuing to crush democratic movements when they become too democratic as Hamas did. Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri denounced it accusing the West of hypocrisy. He noted Hamas was democratically elected and added “This confirms the falseness of the international community’s support for democracy.”

From Dublin, Ireland at a human rights conference, former President Jimmy Carter denounced it as well. He accused the US, EU and Israel of harming and seeking to divide the Palestinian people by aiding Abbas in the West Bank while withholding similar help to Hamas in Gaza. Carter stressed Hamas is entitled to be the ruling Palestinian government because it was democratically elected. Representatives from his Carter Center observed the election and judged it free, open and fair. He urged the international community to work toward reconciliation of Hamas and Fatah but sees nothing being done to do it.

He condemned US, EU and Israeli efforts to undermine Hamas as “criminal.” He continued saying “The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people of Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah.” He then added Washington and others supplied Fatah security forces with superior weapons aimed at “conquer(ing) Hamas in Gaza, but the plan failed because of Hamas’ “superior skills and discipline.”

A Hopeful Look Ahead

Everything happening in the Middle East in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan in Central Asia is interconnected. In all of it, Washington is partnered with Israel and the EU aiming to subdue the people in both regions, control their resources, and rule over this vast area in colonial-occupier fashion directly on the ground or ideally with puppet-installed governments. Washington leads the effort and intends taking the lion share of what it can plunder provided things go as planned. The EU is tagging along led by Britain and Israel in key roles with the Jewish state getting huge amounts of funding to do it. According to a James Tucker American Free Press May, 2003 report it was at a level of $10 billion a year then with Israel wanting it upped to $12 billion.

This figure came from a Library of Congress “briefing paper” titled “Israel: US Foreign Assistance.” It listed categories including direct funding aid, huge amounts in loans and loan guarantees, military aid, R & D help, and considerably more that noted academic and author James Petras documented in his important 2006 book “The Power of Israel in the United States.” In total, Israel, with 5.2 million people in 2005, about the size of a large US or other city, receives more in total aid in all forms than all other nations in the world combined. It uses it to seize Palestinian lands for Jewish resettlement, build separation/apartheid walls, and wage illegal wars of aggression in pursuit of its own imperial agenda for regional dominance as an adjunct to its US partner and very generous funder.

Despite considerable effort and huge amounts of financial and other resources employed, US and Israeli imperial adventurism hasn’t fared too well giving reason to hope more of it will turn out as badly for both nations. Palestinians have endured everything Israel’s thrown at it for six repressive decades. In spite of it, they’re still holding up maintaining their courageous struggle for equity, justice and a free and independent state they intend one day to have and likely will regardless of Israel’s determination to prevent it. History is on their side.

In just the last century, nations around the world struggled for the same rights and prevailed, though for many it took decades or longer and what was gained was far from perfect or even unacceptable too often like in South Africa. The end of apartheid there was replaced by neoliberal “Thatcherism” resulting in greater poverty and hardship for the poor majority than in the earlier era. However, progress usually comes slowly and rarely without setbacks or disappointments. The point is it can come when people seeking it never stop believing it will or working for it until it does. Palestinians have been doing it since 1948, and one day they’ll have what they and all others deserve everywhere, their own state in which to live free from foreign occupation secure at last on their own land.

An early hopeful sign was reported in Haaretz by correspondent Shlomo Shamir June 22. He noted in spite of US, British and French pressure (with new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s shameless backing) for a Security Council declaration of confidence in the Abbas government, it was withdrawn before its drafting stage because of strong protests against it by Russia, South Africa, Indonesia and Qatar. These countries objected to anti-Hamas policies and attempts to characterize it as a terror organization and isolate it. In addition, Russia and South Africa questioned the emergency government’s legitimacy arguing instead for a unity government as the solution to the conflict in occupied Palestine.

It’s a small, maybe temporary victory, but important one nonetheless. It shows mighty America, Israel and the EU can be challenged and forced to back down giving Palestinian people hope more victories will follow and in time the one they want above all others. With faith, courage, patience and redoubtable will, one day they’ll prevail, their Nakba will have ended, and their right to live freely on their own land will be affirmed and recognized.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

______________________________________________________

A SPECIAL MESSAGE TO OUR READERS.

For over two years now, Thomas Paine’s Corner has been a powerful and unwavering voice for a courageous and badly needed agenda for change. We have consistently delivered hard-hitting and insightful commentary, polemics, and analysis in our persistent efforts to persuade, educate, and inspire, and serve as a discriminating but generous platform for voices from many points of view with one thing in common: their spiritual honesty and quality of thinking.
•
Aside from the caliber of its content, Thomas Paine’s Corner’s strength is that there are no advertisers or corporations to exercise de facto censorship or orchestrate our agenda. We aim to keep it that way and we need your help!
•
As a semi-autonomous section of the multi-faceted, thoroughly comprehensive, and highly prestigious Cyrano’s Journal Online, we share Cyrano’s passion for winning the battle of communications against systemic lies, an act which is essential to attaining social and environmental justice. To help us achieve that goal, Cyrano’s Journal, besides its regular editorial pages, intends to begin producing editorial videos to expose the lack of proper context, ahistoricalism, excessive over-emphasis on inane events, and outright lies the corporate media, and in particular television, present to you and your family as a steady diet of pernicious intellectual junk food. This will be an expensive under-taking and there will be no grants forthcoming from the likes of the American Enterprise Institute, the Coors or Heritage Foundation. You can be sure of that!
•
As Greek mythology has it, the powerful are frequently defeated by their own hubris, and that’s precisely what we are witnessing today. Our rotten-to-the-core, usurping plutocracy has become so overtly and arrogantly corrupt that our patience has now reached its generous limit, and the membrane of America’s collective consciousness is about to burst. This will result in a significant restructuring of our socioeconomic and political environments, we hope (and must make sure) for the better. Considering what is at stake in the world today, Cyrano’s Journal and Thomas Paine’s Corner want to accelerate the arrival of that new day, and its promise of a new, truly well organized, kind, and honest civilization.
•
Assisting us in our cause is as simple as clicking on the PayPal button at the top of the left hand column and exercising the power of your wallet. No matter how large or how small, we thank you in advance for your donation! If you are serious about our struggle for a new society, please don’t put it off. Let us hear from you today.
•

Jason Miller
Associate Editor, Cyrano’s Journal Online, and Editorial Director, Thomas Paine’s Corner.
Patrice Greanville, Editor in Chief, Cyrano’s Journal Online

By Ramzy Baroud

6/23/07

All my forewarnings have suddenly been actualised, all at once: Gaza has descended into total and utter chaos; Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has capitulated to Israel and to the United States without a shred of reservation; and the Palestinian democratic experiment, which was until recently an astounding success, has been smashed to pieces.

For years I have been warning of a civil war starting in Gaza. I wrote about it in my last book, The Second Palestinian Intifada. I warned via every media platform available that there are too many hands working to ensure the demise of the Palestinian national project, both from within and without. I urged Palestinians not to fall into rhetoric. I saw very clearly that the fragmentation of Palestinian national identity — an outcome of two combined realities: one stemming from the post-Oslo political culture, the other from Israel’s Bantustan ghettos imposed in the West Bank and the total isolation of Gaza — was almost perfected. I’ve toured many cities in many countries taking on Palestinian division, worried that Palestinians will reach a point where they no longer identify themselves as such, but as ideological and tribal extensions of factions and sub-factions.

In recent months I became belligerent — in the eyes of some — in my frankness. Not one public speech I gave would conclude without a few Palestinians abandoning the gathering; either Fatah loyalists furious over my chastisement of Abbas, Fatah leader Mohamed Dahlan and the rest of the clique for their corruption and deviation from the aspirations of their own people; or Islamists, angry for my suggesting that Hamas shouldn’t act as the sole proprietor of the Palestinian narrative, despite their parliamentary majority, but merely as a conduit for Palestinian constants and the will of the Palestinian people. My comments were not always popular: they ruffled many feathers, and recently they cost me my job.

The devastating embargo imposed on Palestinians after the Hamas landslide victory in January 2006, didn’t produce the results publicly projected. To the contrary, it greatly hampered the American “democratic” experiment in the Middle East. Everywhere I travelled since, I have witnessed a sense of giddiness and much hope being pinned on Hamas’s rise in politics. Thus it was resolved that Hamas had to be removed, with Abbas’s Preventive Security Forces, riddled with corruption, entrusted with the task. Dahlan, man of the hour, was given the Israeli and American nod. His Palestinian “Contras” wreaked havoc: kidnapping, assassinating and provoking endless feuds.

One can well imagine what impact such meddling would have, knowing that Gaza is essentially a huge open-air prison. I was a prisoner there until the age of 21. I remember how people picked fights for no convincing reason — isolation, hunger and hopelessness lead to self-destruction. The US and the EU took part in the siege and embargo, and Israel’s bombardment never ceased, not even for one day. Hundreds of besieged Palestinians have been blown to shreds by Israeli bombs. Their only mechanism of defence has been makeshift Qassam “missiles” that have killed no more than a dozen Israelis in six years. Thousands of Palestinians were killed in Gaza during the same period. Gaza bore all the signs that warned of disaster and civil war was looming, it was one assassin’s bullet away — one provocative statement, one kidnapping.

The pressure Hamas faced as a result was insurmountable. The movement had reached the limits of political concessions; any more would be considered a retreat from its political platform and could lead to fragmentation within its own ranks. Yet a state of isolation from within (Fatah’s total control over the 10 branches of the security apparatus), and from without (the US-led international embargo that called for Hamas’s removal), was sure to weaken Hamas and eventually deprive it of popular support. The decision was thus made that Hamas must take its chances and push for what it termed the “second liberation of Gaza“.

Now the situation is very bleak. Hamas is in control of Gaza, and Abbas and Fatah are in control of as much in the West Bank as Israel allows. This places Palestine’s destiny back in the US neo-conservative court.

Dividing the West Bank and Gaza appears central to the agenda: “This turn of events frees Abbas to focus on the much more manageable West Bank, where he can depend on the Israeli Defense Forces to suppress challenges from Hamas, and on Jordan and the United States to help rebuild his security forces,” wrote Martin Indyk, the pro-Israel lobbyist in Washington, in The Washington Post, 15 June. Most American mainstream editorials are sounding the same message. And various Arab governments, the EU, the US and Israel are flocking to back Abbas. Money, weapons and political legitimacy are being bestowed upon him from all directions. The once irrelevant leader is now the darling of the international community; the sanctions set to be lifted on his emergency government, which he has appointed after sacking the unity government, an unconstitutional act by all standards.

Israeli officials cannot imagine a more satisfactory scenario. The new experiment suggests that the West Bank will be lavished with aid and Gaza will be starved further. This is the pinnacle of injustice, and as always the US and Israel take centre stage, directing the show. Abbas and his men are presented as the true heroes, already making their debut as the true and legitimate face of Palestinian democracy, a democracy determined by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, not the Palestinians.

-Ramzy Baroud is a Palestinian American author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com; his latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London)

“NAFTA alone is estimated to have displaced 40% of the small farmers in Mexico. “Displaced” to where, and to what? For many, it is to abject poverty and they head to where jobs are - regardless of how exploitative - the United States.”

By Rowan Wolf

6/15/07

They stand in icy water; in crowded conditions; wet to the skin for 18 hour shifts. They work for one of the largest food processors in the world. They are paid below legal wage, and not paid overtime. Now, 167 of them sit in ICE custody after a raid on the North Portland (Oregon) plant at which they were employed. Some had ICE agents show up at their homes and take them into custody.

The workers (including legal immigrants) were employed at $7.00 an hour (below Oregon’s minimum wage of $7.80). They worked up to 18 hour shifts with no overtime in appalling conditions. Why did the workers stay?

Rodriguez, the former worker, said most employees did not report poor conditions and long shifts to authorities for fear of losing their jobs.

“Most of them didn’t have papers to work, so they had no choice; this is where they could find work,” Rodriguez said. “It made me sad, because these people came here to work. The women had little kids at home to feed.” [Work complaints hang over plant]

Now those children, like the children of the workers arrested at Michael Bianco, Inc - a military contractor being paid with our tax dollars - sit waiting for parents who will never come home.

Continue Reading »