Uppity Wisconsin
Making Wisconsin Progressive Again
Democratic Dittoheads
Thu, 05/14/2009 - 8:09am | mal contends
PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) scream the commenters across the blogs of those who dare criticize the leader.
The issue is Obama's decision to bar release of torture photos, and you are a PUMA if you criticize Barack Obama. The Party merits your unwavering support.
Some of the shall we say less-than-sophisticated Democrats get right in line behind the leader, a la the most unthinking of the Republican mob.
The issue is Obama's decision to bar release of torture photos, and you are a PUMA if you criticize Barack Obama. The Party merits your unwavering support.
Some of the shall we say less-than-sophisticated Democrats get right in line behind the leader, a la the most unthinking of the Republican mob.
Tags: Obama Blew It
Wed, 05/13/2009 - 5:06pm | mal contends
Update: Greenwald on Obama's latest effort to conceal evidence of Bush era crimes. Dittoheads beware, Greeenwald links to John Aravosis (Obama's logic was "a bit Bushian") Steve Hynd ("Obama Trades Our Principles For Cheneyism") TPM ("Obama falls back on Bushisms") Dan Froomkin ("Obama Joins the Cover-Up"). And as Greenwald points out, "Obama now has new cheer-leaders: Bill Kristol, Michael Goldfarb and Max Boot," and some MyDD commenters. Note to readers: You're not dittoheads!
This is a trust-breaking moment, President Obama, and you really blew it.
It's not a mistake. It's an assault against this democracy.
It's not a mistake. It's an assault against this democracy.
Israel Failed
Wed, 04/22/2009 - 9:21am | mal contends
Update II: Gideon Levy in Haaretz: "The only recognition that is needed now is Israel's recognition of the Palestinians as human beings."
Update: Inside Gaza: The Land of Ghosts
Some wonder if the humanistic dictum of standing with the victims of militarism and racism that - far away from the slaughter of Palestinians and assorted Arabs - animated the creation of Israel lives on today.
But it's not the ravings of foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman or rightwing coalitions that brought this tragedy about.
Update: Inside Gaza: The Land of Ghosts
Some wonder if the humanistic dictum of standing with the victims of militarism and racism that - far away from the slaughter of Palestinians and assorted Arabs - animated the creation of Israel lives on today.
No.
How many corpses of Bassem Ibrahim Abu-Rahma and Rachel Corrie need shatter the lives of their families and communities before we realize that whatever idealism and humanism existed in Israel has vanished as it has become a failed moral state.
But it's not the ravings of foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman or rightwing coalitions that brought this tragedy about.
On Tradition, Or, Same-Sex Marriage, Seen Through A Telescope
Thu, 04/09/2009 - 9:49pm | fake consultant
Dangerous Things are happening in America these days, we are told, and the once-innocent citizens of Iowa and Vermont have already been exposed to the hazard...and now it looks as though the contagion might spread to States across New England. But lucky for us, our friends on the Right are here again to save to save us from...(insert horror film music here)...
...The Gay.
The Gay, it turns out, want the opportunity to marry. Among other complaints, our friends on the Right feel this will destroy religious tradition, which will ultimately destroy first Christianity, then the Nation. Therefore, religious tradition must be protected at all costs.
Well as it turns out, there are some people from our past who know a few things about religious traditions and how they distort reality—and today, we’ll examine the lessons they have to teach us.
Israel Shoots and Kills Peace Activist
Tue, 03/31/2009 - 8:16am | mal contends
When is killing enough killing?
From Robert Fisk in The Independent:
From Robert Fisk in The Independent:
(Peace activist) Tom Hurndall had stayed in Rafah. He was only 21 where – in his mother's words – he lost his life through a single, selfless, human act. 'Tom was shot in the head as he carried a single Palestinian child out of the range of an Israeli army sniper.' Mrs Hurndall asked me to write a preface to Tom's book and this article is his preface, for a brave man who stood alone and showed more courage than most if us dreamed of. Forget tree huggers. Hurndall was one good man and true.Don't know if there are still tickets, by the way, but if you are in Maidson next Tuesday, April 7, check out: Noam Chomsky;. "US Foreign Policy, Israeli Security, & Human Rights" (Event)
NYT: Israeli Troops' 'Thirst for Blood in Gaza'
Thu, 03/19/2009 - 10:14pm | mal contends
Ethan Bronner has what should be a blockbuster in the NYT, excerpted below.
[Shot below shows Israeli humanism at work, an all too typical photo from the Gaza Strip.]
How long are we going to support this hyper militarism and continuing war crime? What will Obama do?
[Shot below shows Israeli humanism at work, an all too typical photo from the Gaza Strip.]
How long are we going to support this hyper militarism and continuing war crime? What will Obama do?
Noam Chomsky;. "US Foreign Policy, Israeli Security, & Human Rights"
Thu, 03/19/2009 - 10:19am | mal contends
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Noam Chomsky; Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Assessing the role of US Foreign Policy, Israeli Security, & Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories”
Orpheum Theater; 216 State Street; 7:30pm
Israel's Horror Show
Wed, 02/11/2009 - 10:34am | mal contends
A Palestinian schoolgirl inspects her classroom which was burnt during Israel's offensive, at UNRWA's (UN Relief and Works Agency) primary school in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on January 24, 2009. Some 200,000 Gaza children returned to school for the first time since Israel's offensive, many having lost family members, their home and their sense of security. The main UNRWA centre and several schools were destroyed by Israeli bombing during the 22-day war. [By Olivier Laban-Mattei/AFP/Getty Images.]
From former neocon Andrew Sullivan, no less.
From former neocon Andrew Sullivan, no less.
Blind support of militarism, Israeli or otherwise, is wrong
Sun, 01/11/2009 - 11:44am | mal contends
Update: Rights group: Israel uses white phosphorus in Gaza
Sunday, January 11, 2009 3:41 PM EST
The Associated Press
By JASON KEYSER Associated Press Writer
Sunday, January 11, 2009 3:41 PM EST
The Associated Press
By JASON KEYSER Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM (AP) — Human Rights Watch said Sunday that Israel's military has fired artillery shells with the incendiary agent white phosphorus into Gaza and a doctor there said the chemical was suspected in the case of 10 burn victims who had skin peeling off their faces and bodies.
This is what Rep. Baldwin and others are supporting. It's wrong, period.
---
Breaking Siege Under Israeli Fire
Mon, 12/29/2008 - 10:12am | mal contends
Personally, I can no longer regard Israel as a moral entity; it has lost its status as a state dedicated to humanism, veering into savagery in its worst attacks in decades. The only question is: Will we remain silent?
The sick irony of history bares its bizarre head as we head into the new year.
As Israel continues its strikes in Gaza enraging the Arab street, the Free Gaza movement is breaking the Israeli siege in another voyage of the Dignity ship to draw world attention to "Israel's draconian policies on the civilians of Gaza."
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday 29th December 2008
As Israel continues its strikes in Gaza enraging the Arab street, the Free Gaza movement is breaking the Israeli siege in another voyage of the Dignity ship to draw world attention to "Israel's draconian policies on the civilians of Gaza."
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday 29th December 2008
Juan Cole Rips Bush Apart One Last Time
Mon, 12/08/2008 - 10:15am | mal contends
Update: See also J. P. Green's Challenging the 'Bush Kept Us Safe' Meme - "It's reflection time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. When the inhabitants of the white house and their minions are not milking their fading authority to smash and grab as much as they can, they are busy spinning history to describe their positive accomplishments. All they have is the fact that we have not had a major terrorist incident 'on U.S. soil' since 9-11. For this, they figure, Americans should be expansively grateful to the lamest duck."
In case anyone missed it, Juan Cole tears apart Bush's-impersonation-of-a-Soviet commissar address last week on Bush's Middle East policy at the Saban Forum in Washington, D.C.
In case anyone missed it, Juan Cole tears apart Bush's-impersonation-of-a-Soviet commissar address last week on Bush's Middle East policy at the Saban Forum in Washington, D.C.
Not that anyone with the power of insight exceeding Cokie Roberts takes anything Bush says seriously these days, but Bush's "self-glorifying speech" disrespects the million human beings no longer alive because of his lying foreign policy.
Concludes Cole:
On The View From Egypt, Part Two, Or, If You Can't Beat 'Em, Lock 'Em Up
Sat, 11/15/2008 - 5:44pm | fake consultant
Joe the Biden famously warned us that the new President will be tested by a foreign policy challenge--and most of us assumed that challenge would come from somewhere like Pakistan, Afghanistan...or Russia.
New developments in the Middle East are suggesting that the challenge might come from an entirely different direction.
It’s quite a story we’ve been telling--and today’s installment involves massive electoral manipulation, intimidation, imprisonment... and a recanting witness who dies in his jail cell.
Hop on board the international train, Gentle Reader, and we’ll see what we can learn about a country that is hardly an enemy...that is, in fact, such an ally that they have been willing to torture for us.
As the title notes, this is Part Two of a larger story, so let’s recap:
The Arab Republic of Egypt has been ruled by various versions of one political party more or less forever. That political party is today known as the National Democratic Party (NDP); and at its head is Egypt’s President (since 1981), Hosni Mubarak.
Egypt’s Constitution is written so as to ensure the perpetual dominance of the NDP.
US-Israel Crimes in Gaza
Wed, 08/06/2008 - 8:09am | mal contends
Update: Watch Death in Gaza. [Thank you, The Proletariat.]
It's way past time for silence on this issue from the progressive community.
One rarely reads of the US-supported Israeli atrocities committed in Gaza and the occupied territories. I mean what's Gaza, and are Palestinians really human beings?
They are. And what's being done to the Palestinians is an obscenity, a bloody siege described in a widely-distributed pamphlet at a 2002 demonstration as a "macabre saga of violence and methodical repression (Islamic Circle of North America)". It's unclear that if the violence and repression were to be featured on broadcast TV what the reaction would be.
U.S. Torture Truth Commission Needed
Sun, 07/06/2008 - 11:35am | mal contends
In Sunday's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof calls for the establishment of a Truth Commission to document and investigate the human rights violations of the United States government under the Bush administration.
Kristof writes:
The first step of accountability isn’t prosecutions. Rather, we need a national Truth Commission to lead a process of soul searching and national cleansing. ... Both Barack Obama and John McCain should commit to impaneling a Truth Commission early in the next administration. This commission would issue a report to help us absorb the lessons of our failings, the better to avoid them during the next crisis.
Good idea on not prosecuting the perpetrators, as any rational accounting could sensibly hold most of us reading these words accountable. And that's not so realistic.
Kristof writes:
The first step of accountability isn’t prosecutions. Rather, we need a national Truth Commission to lead a process of soul searching and national cleansing. ... Both Barack Obama and John McCain should commit to impaneling a Truth Commission early in the next administration. This commission would issue a report to help us absorb the lessons of our failings, the better to avoid them during the next crisis.
Good idea on not prosecuting the perpetrators, as any rational accounting could sensibly hold most of us reading these words accountable. And that's not so realistic.
Why Militarism?
Mon, 06/09/2008 - 8:01am | mal contends
This video shot last year is appalling.
Footage showing Irish Noble Peace Prize recipient, Mairead Maguire getting shot by Israeli army who opened fire at peaceful demonstrators in the West Bank village of Bilin on April 20, 2007, following the international conference on popular resistance (April 18-20, 2007). Maguire was shot by a rubber-coated-metal bullet in the leg. Maguire speaks after she received first aid. [Footage by Ana Nogueira]
Thousands of innocent Palestinians getting shot, imprisoned and killed is appalling.
I read Norman G. Finkelstein's preface, an angry challenge to Barack Obama, and then watched the video.
We need more, not less anger at what Israel (with American complicity) has now become, and what we have all become. What a travesty.
American progressives often fret that the Israel-militarism issue will split the Democratic Party, parting the way for radical Neocon dominance of American politics for generations.
But do we add our voices of condemnation and challange Israeli-American aggression and human rights violations, or ought we be silent?