Powerful corporate interests and jewish interests have become more important to the self designated "elected elite in Washington " than protecting the rights of ordinary Americans. This is evident by the recent passage of the so called bankruptcy reform that will devastate middle and working class Americans while extending special privileges to the rich. By the threatened cuts in benefits in medicaid and food aid to the poor while protecting subsidies and tax cuts for corporations and the rich. The attempted sacking of social security while the "elite" have voted themselves so much special privileges. Finally and most importantly the massacre of the U.S. Constitution through the Patriot Act.
Few in the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government have avoided becoming irreversibly corrupt. There is no way to fix this situation because those who make and enforce the laws control the only legal method to reverse the corruption, the vote. The political system is setup to provide no alternative for the American voters so whomever you vote for (Democrat or Republican) nothing will change. One caveat to this nefarious scenario is that once people have nothing left to lose you can expect at some point a spontaneous combustion of revolution. This is why the Bush government and Congress are so afraid that they pass laws like the Patriot Act (and by dismantling of the Constitution)not to protect the people from the likes of Osama but rather to protect the criminal politicians from the people by targeting those who dare to speak out.
THIS IS NO LONGER THE LAND OF WE THE PEOPLE AND LAND OF THE FREE .. BUT RATHER WE THE CORPORATIONS AND LAND OF THE SPECIAL INTEREST.
The Jewish Casualty Rate in Iraq: REALITY CHECK
U.S. Deaths in Iraq by Race
- American Indian or Alaskan Native: 0.91%
- Asian: 1.82%
- Black or African American: 11.01%
- Hispanic or Latino: 11.19%
- Multiple races, pending, or unknown: 1.31%
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 1.02%
- White: 73.03%
- Israelis ("America's greatest ally"): 0%
- American Jews: .2% — That's approximately 1/10th of their number in the general population
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/487412.html
Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them
By Amiram Barkat
A few weeks ago, a senior Greek Orthodox clergyman in Israel attended a meeting at a government office in Jerusalem's Givat Shaul quarter. When he returned to his car, an elderly man wearing a skullcap came and knocked on the window. When the clergyman let the window down, the passerby spat in his face.
The clergyman prefered not to lodge a complaint with the police and told an acquaintance that he was used to being spat at by Jews. Many Jerusalem clergy have been subjected to abuse of this kind. For the most part, they ignore it but sometimes they cannot.
On Sunday, a fracas developed when a yeshiva student spat at the cross being carried by the Armenian Archbishop during a procession near the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City. The archbishop's 17th-century cross was broken during the brawl and he slapped the yeshiva student.
Both were questioned by police and the yeshiva student will be brought to trial. The Jerusalem District Court has meanwhile banned the student from approaching the Old City for 75 days.
But the Armenians are far from satisfied by the police action and say this sort of thing has been going on for years. Archbishop Nourhan Manougian says he expects the education minister to say something.
"When there is an attack against Jews anywhere in the world, the Israeli government is incensed, so why when our religion and pride are hurt, don't they take harsher measures?" he asks.
According to Daniel Rossing, former adviser to the Religious Affairs Ministry on Christian affairs and director of a Jerusalem center for Christian-Jewish dialogue, there has been an increase in the number of such incidents recently, "as part of a general atmosphere of lack of tolerance in the country."
Rossing says there are certain common characeristics from the point of view of time and location to the incidents. He points to the fact that there are more incidents in areas where Jews and Christians mingle, such as the Jewish and Armenian quarters of the Old City and the Jaffa Gate.
There are an increased number at certain times of year, such as during the Purim holiday."I know Christians who lock themselves indoors during the entire Purim holiday," he says.
Former adviser to the mayor on Christian affairs, Shmuel Evyatar, describes the situation as "a huge disgrace." He says most of the instigators are yeshiva students studying in the Old City who view the Christian religion with disdain.
"I'm sure the phenomenon would end as soon as rabbis and well-known educators denounce it. In practice, rabbis of yeshivas ignore or even encourage it," he says.
Evyatar says he himself was spat at while walking with a Serbian bishop in the Jewish quarter, near his home. "A group of yeshiva students spat at us and their teacher just stood by and watched."
Jerusalem municipal officials said they are aware of the problem but it has to be dealt with by the police. Shmuel Ben-Ruby, the police spokesman, said they had only two complaints from Christians in the past two years. He said that, in both cases, the culprits were caught and punished.
He said the police deploy an inordinately high number of patrols and special technology in the Old City and its surroundings in an attempt to keep order.
Who Is Holding Peace Hostage -- CNI Foundation
December 2, 2007
The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act: A Tutorial in Orwellian Newspeak
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_robert_w_071130_the_homegrown_terror.htm
“Political language has to consist largely of euphemisms . . . and sheer cloudy vagueness.”
- George Orwell -
H.R 1955: the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 recently passed by the House—a companion bill is in the Senate—is barely one sentence old before its Orwellian moment:
It begins, “AN ACT - To prevent homegrown terrorism, and for other purposes.”
Those whose pulse did not quicken at “other purposes” have probably not read George Orwell’s essay, “Politics and the English Language,” or they voted for the other George both times.
Orwell’s jeremiad on the corruption of the English language and its corrosive effect on a democracy was written two years before his novel 1984 spelled out in chilling detail the danger of Newspeak, which renders citizens incapable of independent thought by depriving them of the words necessary to form ideas other than those promulgated by the state.
After its opening “tribute” to Orwell, H.R 1955 is strategically peppered with Newspeak regarding the establishment of a National Commission and university-based Centers of Excellence to “examine and report upon the fact and causes of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States” and to make legislative recommendations for combating it.
The “sheer cloudy vagueness” of H.R 1955, as well as its terror factor, may account for its bipartisan 404-6 House vote but how, in an era informed by the Bush-Cheney administration’s egregious assault on the Bill of Rights, can the phrase “other purposes” fail to raise the “National Terror Alert” from its current threat level of “elevated” to “severe.”
Future “other purposes” will undoubtedly be justified by the Act’s use of the term “violent radicalization,” which it defines as “the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence . . .” or by the folksy, Lake Wobegonesque “homegrown terrorism,” defined as “the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born [or] raised . . . within the United States . . . to intimidate or coerce the United States, the civilian population . . . or any segment thereof . . . [italics added].”
In the service of some self-serving “other purposes,” will “extremist beliefs” become any belief the temporary occupants of the White House consider antithetical and threatening to their political agenda?
Will “ideologically based violence” or the use of “force” become little more than the mayhem resulting after a peaceful protest, daring to move beyond the barbed wire of the free speech zone, is attacked by a truncheon-wielding riot squad armed with tear gas, German Shepard dogs and water cannons?
Will the unarmed, constitutionally protected dissenters who are fending off blows or dog bites, or who are striking back in self-defense become “homegrown terrorists” and suffer draconian sentences for their attempt to “intimidate or coerce” the state with free thought and free speech?
A clue to future “other purposes” may lie in the Act’s parentage. The proud House “mother” of the Patriot Act’s evil twin is Rep. Jane Harmon (D-CA), chair of the Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee. Rep. Harmon has admitted to a long and productive relationship with the RAND Corporation, a California based think-tank with close ties to the military-industrial-intelligence complex. RAND’s 2005 study, “Trends in Terrorism,” contains a chapter titled, “Homegrown Terrorist Threats to the United States.”
Keep in mind that the RAND Corporation was set up in 1946 by Army Air Force General Henry “Hap” Arnold as “Project RAND” sponsored by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Keep in mind also that Donald Rumsfeld was its chairman from 1981 to 1986 and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Dick Cheney’s felonious former chief of staff, and Condoleezza Rice were trustees. Enough said!
RAND maintains that “homegrown terrorism” will not be the result of jihadist sleeper cells. Rather, it will result from anti-globalists and radical environmentalists who “challenge the intrinsic qualities of capitalism, charging that in the insatiable quest for growth and profit, the philosophy is serving to destroy the world’s ecology, indigenous cultures, and individual welfare.”
Further, RAND claims that anti-globalists and radical environmentalists “exist in much the same operational environment as al Qaida” and pose “a clear threat to private-sector corporate interests, especially large multinational business.” Therein lies the real “other purposes.”
Predictably then, H.R. 1955 is not about protecting homegrown Americans. That protection is only incidental to its “other purposes” of protecting homegrown corporate interest and its unconscionable manipulation of the American political process to fill its coffers. Any thought or speech or action— however protected it might be by the Bill of Rights—that threatens corporate hegemony and profit will no doubt suffer the “other purposes” clause of the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.
Anyone doubting the Orwellian nature of an Act that equates anti-globalists and environmentalists with al Qaida terrorists will do well to read Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” and to acquaint themselves with the fate of Winston Smith in 1984.
Robert Weitzel lives in Middleton, WI. His essays appear in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He has also been published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Skeptic Magazine, Freethought Today and on the web sites, commondreams.org and smirkingchimp.com. He can be contacted at: rweitz@tds.net