[CTRL] The Israel Lobby Must Be Contained
-Caveat Lector- http://mparent.livejournal.com/7366164.html The Israel Lobby Must Be Contained 'Israel Lobby' Dean To Leave Post in June ===30/03/06 Reactions to the Israel Lobby StudyIn the three weeks since the Harvard and Chicago University professors' study of the "Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" was published in the London Review of Books and placed on Harvard's Kennedy School of Government website, there has been an enormous response from pundits in the U.S. and Israel.The initial hurt reaction of such pro-Israel personalities as Alan Dershowitz and journalist Marvin Kalb could be described as inelegant outrage. Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY), one of Israel's strongest congressional supporters, weighed in noisly, calling the study "the same old anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist drivel." In the New York Sun, he was quoted as saying,"Given what happened in the Holocaust, it's shameful that people would write reports like this."This is typical of what any objective critic of Israel receives from the Israel lobby and its supporters. It deliberately obfuscates and generally does not deal with factual analysis. The drumbeat of condemnation has been only partially balanced by responses by such figures as Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, who noted that "a sliver of the political spectrum, falsely insisting that it represents all American Jews, manages to skew U.S. politics and reporting on the issue of Palestine."In Washington, the Post waited ten days before deeming the story newsworthy enough. In a so-far unanswered letter to the ombudsman of the Post about the article, international lawyer and frequent contributor to the International Herald Tribune John Whitbeck, commented:"[The Post article] provides commentary from eight mostly peculiar sources -- of which only two (of which one is the now inevitable David Duke) are favorable while the other six are scathing (using fine analytic terms like 'ignorant propaganda,' 'masquerading as scholarship,' 'biased, one-sided, foolish, repetitive,' 'academic garbage,' 'piss-poor,' 'riddled with errors' and my personal favorite -- 'ignores previous serious work on the subject')." The Capitol Hill establishment that unconditionally supports Israel was equally outraged and reportedly held a private meeting to discuss the position they should take on the paper. But, according to the New York Jewish-American paper the Forward, the lobby decided to bury the study with silence. Only minor coverage of the 82-page report appeared in the American press beyond the Post and scurrilous op-eds in pro-Israel newspapers. The only television coverage was a gratuitous interview with a true anti-Semite, David Duke. Take Action to Contain the Israel Lobby!Some years ago, the Council for the National Interest issued a brochure with remarkably similar conclusions that indeed U.S. policy makers on Capitol Hill, in the White House, and at the Department of State were under continuous intimidation and pressure on behalf of Israel.More recently, we have proposed a Foreign Lobby Registration Act (FLORA), which for the first time would bring transparency into lobbying on foreign affairs by groups tied closely to foreign governments. As Walt and Mearsheimer note in their paper, AIPAC ''is a de facto agent of a foreign government [and] has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress."The initial charges of anti-Semitism, at worse, coupled with the sudden silence indicates that there is an organized lobby on behalf of Israel. There is nothing wrong with that, but what is wrong is shutting down debate and intimidating the whole political process on behalf of Israel.At this moment lobbying legislation is working its way through Congress that is both inadequate and fails to deal with the problem of lobbies embedded with foreign governments. Read the Israel lobby report online and sign the petition supporting a Foreign Lobby Registration Act.Eugene BirdPresident Council for the National Interest Foundation1250 4th Street SW, Suite WG-1Washington, District of Columbia 20024 www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/ ctrl To
[CTRL] Black Athena
-Caveat Lector- http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2006/03/body-eclectic-part-one_28.html#comments starroute said... Jeff raises one crucial issue -- but I see an even deeper issue behind that. The first issue is one of epistomology -- what can we know and how do we know it? When I was growing up, Western culture was still clinging to the remains of 17th century empiricism -- the idea that a newborn baby is a blank slate and all we can know is what we ourselves have experienced or learned. However, that was already changing. By the time I studied linguistics in college in the 60's, the hot new idea was that perhaps certain kinds of knowledge (like the rules of grammar) might be hard-wired into the brain. By the end of the 60's, I was starting to run into the further suggestion that the human mind was actually able to tap into something outside itself. That the quantum field, or the Akashic Records, or the "Universal Tablet" of the Rumi quote on Jeff's front page is a great repository of all the information in the universe, which we can access to the extent of our understanding and our necessity. However, being the good modern Westerners that we are, we still tend to see this repository as a passive substance, like a computer hard drive, that we can draw upon and even manipulate at will. But what if it isn't? What if it has a will and purpose of its own? At this point, I'm going to quote a few paragraphs from Martin Bernal's "Black Athena," which I've been re-reading lately. They have to do with a crucial philosophical turning in the development of modern science -- the choice of "passive" matter over "active" matter -- and its political implications, and they raise a number of interesting issues: By the 1680s a new, equally radical intellectual force had emerged in England from the Hermetic and Rosicrucian traditions. The new movement argued for a twofold philosophy, for transcendence by the elite of the religious squabbles of the masses. The masses should be given toleration to practise their particular superstition, but political and intellectual power should be firmly in the hands of the enlightened few. This general attitude was perfectly compatible with 18th-century English society. The Radical Enlightenment, however, contained thinkers like John Toland, who not only drew from the Rosicrucian and Masonic traditions the notion of a prisca theologia, but also read Bruno. Toland had absorbed many of Bruno's cosmological Hermetic and Egyptian ideas of animate matter and a world spirit, ideas which lead to pantheism or even atheism. Long before this Newton himself had hesitated, in private, on the question of the activity or passivity of matter, but Newtonianism was not merely scientific. It had a consequent political and theological doctrine which depended on the passivity of matter, with motion coming only from outside. Otherwise, theologically, the universe would need no crdeator or 'Grand Architect', let alone a 'clock-minder'; while politically, England would need no king -- Toland was fully aware of the republican implications of his ideas. John Toland was a central figure in the establishment ofc the legends, rituals and theology of speculative Masonry, much of which was standardized and canonized by the fusion of various Masonic and Rosicrucian groups in 1717. By that time, however, the movement had been taken over by respectable Newtonians. Even bold figures like Newton's deputy and successor at Cambridge, William Whiston, who unlike his mentor openly proclaimed his Arianism -- disbelief in the divinity of Christ -- 'despised and actively combated' Toland and his ideas. These paragraphs are not as clear as I'd like -- largely because they contain too many ideas tangled up in a small space. But the points I take from them are these: 1) As radical new scientific and philosophical ideas advanced in the 17th century, the elite in general tended to argue that they could handle them, but that the masses should be kept ignorant and encouraged to adhere to their traditional superstitions. (This is, quite explicitly, still the position of the Straussians, and may explain a lot about the power of fundamentalism in this country today.) 2) Beyond that general elitism, there was an ongoing dispute between the Newtonian position of passive matter -- which justified both belief in a God to keep things running and, by analogy, in a powerful monarch -- and Toland's position of active matter, which leads to far more pantheistic, democratic, and open source concepts of the universe and of society. 3) The debate between active and passive matter may have been confined to the elite at the time. It's not clear from the quote whether Toland thought the masses could be trusted with his ideas or not. But either way, the concept of active matter must ultimately be subversive of all forms of superimposed power and external control.
[CTRL] Fwd: Argentina & Uruguay abandon School of the Americas
-Caveat Lector- www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/ ctrl To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om --- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector- Argentina & Uruguay abandon School of the Americas www.SOAW.org |202-234-3440 SOA Watch Update, March 28, 2006 Read this update on the web SOA Watch Breaking News & Update March 28, 2006 Argentina & Uruguay abandon SOA! Critical victory for human rights organizations across the Americas We are thrilled to tell you that, after meeting with representatives of human rights organizations and the three SOA Watch activists Carlos Mauricio, Lisa Sullivan and Fr. Roy Bourgeois, the governments of Argentina and Uruguay have agreed to stop sending soldiers to train at the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC)! These decisions are a critical victory for all those struggling for human rights, justice and military accountability across the Americas! Argentina and Uruguay are the second and third countries to take this vital step; they join Venezuela, which announced in January of 2004 that they would no longer send soldiers to the school. This past Friday, Roy, Carlos and Lisa met with the Defense Minister of Uruguay, Azucena Berrutti. Minister Berrutti is a former human rights lawyer. During the long dictatorship in Uruguay she defended numerous political prisoners. Lisa Sullivan writes: "From the beginning of the conversation, Minister Berrutti told us that there was no need to explain the atrocities of the SOA, as she, and the people of Uruguay, were fully aware of this reality, having experienced first hand the horrors of the tortures, detentions, imprisonments and 'disappearances' caused by its graduates. Over and over here in Latin America we have been humbled and realize that we do not need to explain these things to our public, but rather they have much to tell us, to put faces and emotions on the statistics which we have memorized so efficiently"Minister Berrutti shared with Carlos, Lisa and Roy some very good news: during the year President Tabaré Vázquez has been in office, no military personnel from Uruguay have been sent to the SOA, and none will be sent under this current administration. Yesterday, the three SOA Watch activists and the head of the Mothers of the Disappeared met with the defense minister, Nilda Garré, whose husband was disappeared during the repression in Argentina. Minister Garré agreed that after the one Argentinean soldier currently at the SOA/ WHINSEC finishes his classes, no more Argentinean soldiers will be sent to the School of the Americas. Read the whole update from Lisa, Carlos & Roy. The tide is turning in Latin America! All across Central and South America, governments and citizens are rejecting SOA-style military "solutions" to social problems. Across the Americas, support for the School of the Americas is eroding every day. Add your voice to this movement for justice! March, rally and lobby to close the SOA in Washington, DC April 23-25! (see below for more info). --- Hundreds of thousands mobilize in support of immigrant rights Yesterday tens of thousands of students walked out of school in California and other states in a second week of massive protests across the United States against legislation to crack down on illegal immigrants. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants and supporters participated in enormous and energetic marches in Los Angeles, Chicago, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Boulder, Washington, DC and other cities to protest a bill that would make it a felony to be in this country illegally and would make it crime to dispense aid to those without legal documents. Broad-based coalitions of faith, labor, business and community leaders have come together to oppose this bill and to call for the creation of a path to citizenship for immigrants. In several U.S. cities, the massive marches of the past two weeks are the largest public gatherings ever to occ
[CTRL] Fwd: [ctrl] End of US role
-Caveat Lector- www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/ ctrl To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om --- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-2109233,00.html The Times March 29, 2006 Result could spell end of US role in pushing for peace By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor THIRTY years of intense US-led diplomacy, aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, could draw to an end in the wake of yesterdays Israeli elections and the confirmation of a new militant Palestinian government. Ever since Washington brokered the Camp David agreement in 1979, successive US administrations have despatched envoys to the region and produced dozens of plans in the search for an elusive peace. Now, however, the peace process, as this tortuous brand of diplomacy is known, could be coming to a end. Yesterdays election victory in Israel for the centrist Kadima party has given Ehud Olmert, the man forming the new government, a strong mandate to carry out territorial moves that would see Israel setting out unilaterally what it regards as its future borders. Last year Ariel Sharon, the former Prime Minister who is in a coma after suffering a stroke, executed a similar move in the Gaza Strip. That operation, which involved the removal of 8,000 Jewish settlers, was widely welcomed internationally since it conformed to demands that Israel vacate all land it captured in the 1967 Six-Day War. Mr Olmerts proposed pullout from the West Bank is far more controversial. While he also plans to remove thousands of Jewish settlers, he would incorporate Arab East Jerusalem and three large chunks of occupied territory, where the bulk of Jewish settlements are located. With the erection of a security fence to protect this new frontier, Israel will de facto have redrawn an international border. The move is likely to produce an outcry internationally, but that in itself will not deter a new Government which has the clear backing of the Israeli people. On the Palestinian side the situation is even more complex. Yesterday the new Palestinian parliament confirmed the appointment of ministers belonging to Hamas, the militant Islamic group which has waged a bloody campaign against Israel. For the time being there is no question of direct official contact between the new Palestinian government and the West at any senior level until the movement fundamentally changes its policies. America and the EU insist that Hamas recognise Israels right to exist and abandons the use of violence. Senior British officials insisted yesterday that there is still the possibility of bringing both parties back into an international framework. The Quartet group, made up of America, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, will continue to meet and discuss Middle East issues and give its support to the road map, a plan which envisages the creation of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. But Western diplomats concede that in the present climate the chance of any real negotiations is virtually nil. As ever in the Middle East, the US remains the only outside player that can exert real pressure on the parties. But the Bush Administration has time and again shown itself reluctant to get involved and certainly does not intend to challenge Israel. Washington is already struggling with the war in Iraq and other regional crises, without taking on one more intractable problem. Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on Times Newspapers' standard Terms and Conditions . Please read our Privacy Policy . To inquire about a licence to reproduce material from The Times, visit the Syndication website . - - - - - - Fields are spoiled by weeds; people, by delusion. So what's given to those free of delusion bears great frui
[CTRL] Fwd: [ctrl] Cons' Secret Weapon
-Caveat Lector- www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/ ctrl To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om --- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector- http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12548.htm NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN Illegal Workers: the Cons' Secret Weapon By Thom Hartmann 03/29/06 "Baltimore Chronicle" -- -- Conservatives are all atwitter about illegal immigrants. Some want to give them amnesty. Others want to reinstitute the old Bracero program. Others want to build a wall around America, like the communists did around East Berlin. Some advocate all of the above. But none will tell Americans the truth about why we have eleven million illegal aliens in this nation now (when it was fewer than 2 million when Reagan came into office), why they're staying, or why they keep coming. In a word, it's "jobs." In conservative lexicon, it's "cheap labor to increase corporate profits." Recently George W. Bush insulted working Americans by saying that we need eleven million illegal immigrants here in the United States because (in a slightly cleaned- up version of the more blatantly racist comments of Vicente Fox) there are some jobs that "American's won't do." As the modern-day Sago miners, and the 1950s Ed Norton character Art Carney played on the old Jackie Gleason show (who worked in the sewers of NYC) prove, the reality is that there are virtually no jobs Americans won't do - for an appropriate paycheck. It's really all about breaking the back of the most democratic (and Democratic) of American institutions - the American middle class. One of the tools conservatives have used very successfully over the past 25 years to drive down wages, bust unions, and increase CEO salaries has been to encourage illegal immigrant labor in the US. Their technique is transparently simple. Conservatives well understand supply and demand. If there's more of something, its price goes down. If it becomes scarce, its price goes up. They also understand that this applies just as readily to labor as it does to houses, cars, soybeans, or oil. While the history of much of the progressive movement in the United States has been to control the supply of labor (mostly through pushing for maximum-hour, right-to-strike, and child-labor laws) to thus be able to bargain decent wages for working people, the history of conservative America has, from its earliest days grounded in slavery and indentured workers from Europe, been to increase the supply of labor and drive down its cost. In the 1980s, for example, the increasing supply of labor (both from Reagan-allowed consolidations eliminating redundant jobs, and from illegal immigration, which was around 3 million illegals by the time Reagan left office) fed massive union-busting in industry sectors from those directly hit with illegal immigrant labor (like construction and agriculture) to those who only felt its fallout but nonetheless were pressed (like coal mining). In part, because of these national downward pressures on organized labor, the miners who died in the International Coal Group's Sago Mine didn't have union protection. Indeed, as the International Coal Group's June 2005 form S-A/1 filing notes about one of their other recent mine acquisitions: ".assets are high quality reserves strategically located in Appalachia and the Illinois Basin, are union free, have limited reclamation liabilities and are substantially free of other legacy liabilities." Similarly, it's estimated that the construction industry enhanced their profits last year by over a billion dollars because the availability of illegal immigrant labor has so significantly pushed down the price of construction labor. "Union free" is good for the CEOs and stockholders of giant corporations. Reagan helped make it possible by reducing enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust and similar acts, by making the Labor Department hosti
[CTRL] Fwd: Arab Stock Market Tumbles; But Who Knows It?
-Caveat Lector- www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/ ctrl To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om --- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector- Left Margin Arab Stock Market Tumbles; But Who Knows It? By Carl Bloice published by portside, March 28, 2006 Think people in the Emirates don't stage street demonstrations? Think again. On March 8, hundreds of protestors gathered in front of the Kuwait City stock exchange. They weren't anti-globalization protesters, but stockholders who had seen their net worth plummet over the preceding month, culminating the previous day when the market fell 400 points. It didn't get any better. On March 14, the Kuwaiti investor-demonstrators hit the streets again, this time marching on the parliament demanding the government take action to stop the slide. The market had just registered its largest one-day loss and closed at a six-month low. Still it didn't stop. Two weeks later, on March 26, after analysts had begun expressing a positive outlook, the Kuwaiti exchange cascaded again, shedding 239.8 points. According to press reports, the Kuwait protesters accused the big money traders on the exchange of manipulating the market for various financial and political motives. A member of parliament, Abdulwahid Al-Awadi said, "someone is playing with the stock market in an attempt to monopolize it." However it soon became clear that the crisis was not limited to the Emirate of Kuwait. That same day, in the United Arab Emirates, the market plunged to its lowest level in 11 months and observers began referring to the fall as "Black Tuesday." The stock markets fell 11.7 percent in Dubai and 4.74 percent in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi stock market accounts for half of the value of all Arab exchanges, with a capitalization of around $650 billion. Over a two week period, the capital value of the Saudi market slid by more than 30 percent. By March 16, the Financial Times was reporting that the main Saudi index was "down 21 percent from its all-time high, but Dubai, where the collapse began earlier, was 51 percent off." On March 26, in defiance of optimistic forecasts, the Saudi stock market fell 626.65 points. Of the 79 listed companies, 72 saw their price drop. "A lot of wealth is disappearing overnight," Shahid Hameed, head of asset management at Manama-Bahrain-based Securities & Investment Co, told Bloomberg news. How strange it is that in an area of the world that has been officially named a strategic priority for the United States since the 1970s, an economic meltdown is underway and shows no signs of slowing any time soon and yet people in our country are almost totally unaware it is happening. Why the stock markets across the region are being shattered is not clear; international observers and analysts on the scene admit it remains somewhat a mystery. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the panic behind the rout is interrelated with the political and military situation in the Middle East and Gulf region, the U.S. conflict with Iran and the continuing costly and destabilizing war in Iraq. It cannot bode well for the political or economic security of the international community. The total combined value of the stock exchanges in the Gulf countries fell March 14 to just under one trillion dollars, down some $159 billion from their in 2005 value and more than $250 billion below their all-time high. "'Collapse,' 'Domino effect,' 'Bleeding' screamed headlines in Arab newspapers," reported the Financial Times, as Arab investors tried to come to terms with the region-wide collapse in stock market prices. "It is pure panic and its snowballing effect on investor sentiment which are triggering the fall. We cannot any more call it a correction as it is a crash," Dhaheer Quraish, general manager of Essham Securities, told the Dubai-based Khaleej Times. Evidently there were no street demos in the Saudi capital, but Saudi politicians demanded state action to stop the
