Jenny Tonge, An Old Bigot Speaks.

A quick post, but Jenny Tonge is at it again, her latest rant:

“”Beware Israel,” she said. “Israel is not going to be there for ever in its present form. One day, the United States of America will get sick of giving £70bn a year to Israel to support what I call America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East – that is Israel. One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough.”

She added: “Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown.”

What Tonge is saying, in other words, is that the Israel lobby compels the USA to give Israel £70 billion a year.

Tonge is implying that Israel lobby can force the US against their better interest to support Israel and one day they will realise that, which is a conspiracy theory

Anti-Jewish racism is replete with conspiracy theories, supposedly the nefarious power of Jews to influence others. It is the stable of the Extreme Right and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Tonge puts it more politely, but that’s what she believes. Watch a video of her comments (from 01:50 onwards).

Many Liberal Democrats have rightly been disgusted by Tonge’s antics, which date back years, but some (even at the New Statesman) wish to defend her.

Stephen Tall’s post is informative.

And if you can’t make up your mind then watch her fellow participant, Ken O’Keefe go on about 9/11 and Mossad. Baroness Jonge didn’t bat an eyelid at these absurdities.

Huff Post’s coverage.

JC’s Police to probe Tonge’s Israel Apartheid Week rant.

A pointless evening in Hendon by Jamie Slavin.

Not forgetting her stupidity in 2010 suggesting that Israelis went all the way to Haiti, not to aid them, but to harvest organs from dead Haitians. Unbelievable.

Baroness Tonge: The full statement.

Tonge resigns from Liberal Democrats after Israel controversy.

Green Party, Not Necessarily Racist.

Political activists, like politicians, hate being told what to do or, in this case, their intelligence questioned, that is how I read the Green Party’s turning down of an eminently sensible statement on antisemitism.

I would assume that their rejection was part of their political stubbornness and stupidity, rather than some underlying malice. Perhaps I am being too charitable?

However, until the Green Party can candidly acknowledge its past problems with antisemitism then there will always be a lingering doubt on their sincerity, commitment to antiracism and above all, intelligence.

The failed motion below should have gone through on the nod, it is hardly contentious and nicely balanced, suggesting that the Green Party’s overall approach is not.

“The Liverpool Green Party’s working definition of antisemitism:

(1) Antisemitism is hostility to, resentment of or suspicion of Jews.

(2) Antisemitism may express itself as discrimination against Jews and this is analogous to other forms of racial or sex discrimination.

(3) Antisemitism also arises in recklessness about possible damage to the lives, welfare or feelings of Jews. When a course of action is proposed that would damage Jews, the proposer should be taken in good faith if he or she was unaware of those consequences. However, summary dismissal of evidence or argument of damaging consequences to Jews would amount to antisemitism.

(4) Antisemitism can vary in seriousness. It is antisemitic to have special expectations of Jews that are different from the general population, for example expecting a Jew to be more knowledgeable about the affairs of Israel or to be more willing “as a Jew” to criticise any action of the government of Israel, or to respond in a particular way.

(5) Antisemitism can be expressed as stereotypes about Jewishness and in references to international Jewish conspiracies.

(6) Antisemitism can be promoted by uncritical platform-sharing or co-operation with groups and individuals which are themselves antisemitic. It would set too high a standard to require perfect knowledge of any group’s or individual’s record on antisemitism. However the criterion should be that there should be an equal level of scrutiny of potential antisemitism as there would be of any other potential racialism.

(7) Criticism of the state of Israel is not necessarily antisemitic. Further, it is not a requirement on any critic of Israel that they must first locate and criticise any other state which has done worse things than has Israel. Criticism of Israel may be antisemitic if the critic applies harsher judgements on Israel than they would apply to the actions of any other state.

(8) Use of language can be antisemitic. Awareness of the history of the Holocaust, perpetrated by the Nazi regime, should preclude making any equivalences between that regime and the current government of Israel. This should not prevent any criticism of any deed by the government of Israel, but the Nazi allusion adds nothing and serves only to cause distress. “

Yossi Gurvitz on Syria

I suspect that lot of what Yossi Gurvitz says applies to attitudes in Britain and Europe:

“Last Thursday, a special UN commission on Syria found that the Assad regime is committing crimes against humanity, and that senior regime officials are participants in these crimes. The commission was significantly limited in its ability to report on events, as the regime denied it entry into Syria, and it had to rely on the testimonies of refugees. Even so, it is important to take its conclusions seriously: in several previous cases, the first testimonies about crimes against humanity came from refugees.

The refugees supply us with only a partial view, yet they indicate a terrible desolation, thousands of casualties, the systematic use of rape as a tool of terror, and prevalent torture. The number of civilians massacred by the regime in the last year is estimated in the many thousands – many more, for instance, than the number killed by the IDF during the Second Intifada. Naturally, the precise number is not known, but an opposition site that is considered reputable cites 8,791 dead; another site, which also furnishes a map of the atrocities, estimates the number of dead at 9,236. These numbers are updated to the time of writing of this post, and both of them reflect only the known dead – people identified by others. It’s very probable that there are hundreds more, unrecognized.

Read more at Opposition activists must choose: Either human rights or Assad.

Dealing With Anti-Muslim Racism & More.

The advent of the MAMA project is most welcome.

Until now it has been hard to quantify the extent and level of racism which faces many Muslims in Britain. Years back when I tried to research the topic I found scattered information, incomplete police reporting and a serious lack of concrete information.

It is going to be a hard and depressing task, to correlate and document the level of racism faced by Muslims on a day-to-day basis in Britain, however, I hope that the MAMA project has the success that the Community Security trust does. Good luck to them.

James Bloodworth looks at a common British habit, When did looking down on others become the national pastime?

Report from Lhasa: February 18, 2012 makes difficult reading:

“Lhasa consists of approximately 1.2 million Chinese and approximately 200,000 Tibetans. The majority of these Tibetans live in an area which is now almost entirely enclosed by military compounds with walls between 10-16 feet; some with barbed wire. This isolation gives the impression of what the Warsaw Ghetto was like. Inside the “enclosed” area groups of armed soldiers, S.W.A.T. teams, and police patrol the streets 24 hours a day. Military drill songs can be heard throughout the day. S.W.A.T trucks and rows of 6 to 15 armored vehicles and tanks come through the area on a daily basis. Each vehicle has 3 to 4 soldiers at the opening turret, armed with assault rifles or machine guns aimed at the Tibetans.

All Tibetans must carry identification at all times. Tibetans residing in Lhasa are required to register with the police. There are approximately 134 new Police station checkpoints in Lhasa for random searches of pedestrians and vehicles. In addition to the military compounds in and around Lhasa, permanent military posts holding 1-10 armed soldiers have been established throughout the city. “

It could be just like Switzerland, that’s what Hirsh Goodman thinks.

Spiegel Online reminds us the Neo-Nazi Terrorist Threat Remains Real.

In local blog news, the Third Estate on How rich institutions, the big parties and the mass media have colonised the blogosphere.

Jeff Goldberg has a worrying piece, Iranian Scientist’s Wife Says Husband Sought Annihilation of Israel. The Fars News Agency has the original copy.

Norms of intervention.

Finally, Bradley Burston makes some excellent points:

“It’s Israel Apartheid Week 2012. Time for people who support Israel to tell the truth. Yes, the settlements are an obstacle to peace. Yes, the occupation, which exists to protect the settlements, is the opposite of democracy. Yes, the present government speaks of two states in theory alone.

In the democracy that was the United States in the year 1840, there were those who said that slavery was essential, irreversible, eternal, God’s will. And that people of color and women of all races should not, and therefore would not, be granted the freedoms and rights of full citizenship, that the only good Native American was a dead one.

And, at the same time, there were those who believed that democracy and equality would become law, however dreadful and protracted the process might be, and they were right.

It is 2012. America’s freedoms, its promises of opportunity and openness to immigrants and minorities, are still under attack, still being tested. The answer is not to dismantle America, but to strengthen its freedoms.

All Americans deserve democracy and self-determination. So do both of the native peoples of the Holy Land, Palestinians and Israelis alike. Just as in 1840 America, in this Holy Land there are people working on both sides, quietly, continually, toward that goal. Not freedom for one people at the expense of the other, but freedom and independence for both.

This is the lesson that BDS has yet to learn. And this is why BDS, and Israeli Apartheid Week, are failures. “

16,375 Far Right Crimes.

Not pleasant, but essential reading:

“In the three months since the news broke, there has been ample evidence to suggest Germany’s far right has been celebrating rather than condemning the killing spree.

At a fascist march in Munich in January, demonstrators blasted the Pink Panther theme tune from loudspeakers, a reference to bizarre videos featuring the cartoon character which the group produced.

Just a few weeks after two core members of the group were found dead in a camper van after an apparent double suicide, football supporters in Zwickau, the eastern town where the NSU members had been living under false identities, chanted “Terrorzelle Zwickau – ole, ole, ole”. A footballer from FSV Zwickau was fined after responding to shouts of “Sieg!” from the crowd during the same match with “Heil!”.

By the German government’s latest estimate, from 2010, there are 9,500 rightwing extremists in Germany who are “ready to commit violence”. That year, 16,375 “rightwing-motivated” crimes were recorded.

The perpetrators are not as easy to spot as they were in the late 1990s, when Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, two of the key NSU trio, were photographed at neo-Nazi marches with shaved heads, wearing bomber jackets and boots with white shoelaces, their trousers held up with red, black and white braces.

But German neo-Nazis are not always so circumspect. Well-publicised internet “hitlists” target leftwing politicians, pubs and social projects. There have been at least 182 murders motivated by rightwing extremism since German reunification in 1990, according to the Antonio Amadeu foundation pressure group. The government put the figure at just 47 in December, though some states are now increasing their own numbers after going back through their files.

Among the general population, intolerance is on the increase. A long-term study by the sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer in 2011 showed that every second German believes too many foreigners live in Germany, and 53% would have a problem moving into an area where lots of Muslims lived, an increase of 6% from 2004.

Against this backdrop of tacit racism it is no wonder that detectives appear not to have bothered to investigate rightwing extremism as a possible motive for the 10 killings, according to Katina Schubert, an expert in race relations from the leftwing Die Linke party.

“It’s clear the police and intelligence agencies were racist to the core,” she claimed. “They assumed right from the start that the eight Turks and one Greek man were killed by members of their own immigrant communities. The police briefed that these men were embroiled in drug smuggling plots or other crimes.”

Until the group was uncovered in November, the killings were known in Germany as the “doner murders”, which incorrectly gave the impression all the dead men were kebab sellers, reinforcing the stereotype that that’s what Turks in Germany do.

In Berlin on Thursday, Merkel apologised to the families of those killed. “For years, some relatives themselves unfairly faced suspicion that is particularly oppressive,” said the chancellor. “I ask for forgiveness for that.”

The police in Germany are “blind in the right eye”, say critics. “A 17-year-old in Nuremberg, where I live, was almost beaten to death by a neo-Nazi and the police didn’t take it at all seriously,” said Idil, a 19-year-old student attending an anti-Nazi counter-march in Dresden earlier this month. The boy, a Kurdish friend of hers, was left for dead in April 2010 after remarking on a Thor Steinar accessory carried by his attacker’s girlfriend. “

(H/T:Kirklees Unity)

Marie Colvin, Syria And Abyssinia.

Marie Colvin’s killing reminds us how brutal the Syrian regime is. How it will murder anyone that opposes it by virtue of their words or actions. Marie Colvin is a victim like thousands of dead Syrians who have died over the past year.

The murderous events in Syria should remind us how little we have learnt since Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia. It is a standard text amongst Western children on the nature of the 1930s, aggressive dictators and the failure of the West to stop them, yet it could be rewritten in terms of 21st century Syria.

Despite a year of merciless murder, the slaughter of civilians and numerous war crimes the West has done little to stop the carnage in Syria.

There has been plenty of hand wringing, a lot of coughing and arguments trotted out that would shame a 1930’s isolationist by their naiveté, repetition and cynicism.

Hugh Dixon looks at some of the issues, in How to help the Syrians.

Elsewhere, Slain journalists may have been targeted by Syrian military.

Marie Colvin’s last piece ‘We live in fear of a massacre’.

My friend, Marie Colvin.

Recalling a Last Dinner With a Journalist Killed in Syria.

Marie Colvin’s November 2010 speech on the importance of war reporting.

Journalist Marie Colvin in Homs.

Two Western Journalists Killed in Syria Shelling.

We can only hope that in 20 years from now that children are taught the lessons of not allowing dictators and murderous regimes to slaughter civilians whilst the world looks on. I am not that optimistic.

Syria, T72 Tanks And More

Over the past few weeks there have been numerous pieces in the press concerning Syria and the Middle East, this is a small selection:

Inside the torture chamber of Assad’s inquisition squads.

Syrian troops fire on protesters in Damascus.

Asa Winstanley on Russia Today has been quibbling about the precise death toll in Syria.

Why he does that I can’t say. I can understand why Russia Today does it. They are following Russia’s foreign policy support for Bashar Assad’s regime, but why Winstanley would quibble when the Syrian regime are slaughtering the people of Homs on a daily basis, is hard to fathom.

Left Foot Forward argues Liberal intervention shouldn’t be confined to the West.

China backs Assad before Syrian forces open fire at funeral.

Assad sends tanks towards Homs as Red Cross seeks ceasefire talks.

Nir Rosen on Syria’s armed opposition.

Syrian Regime Fakes Supportive Roy Interview.

Dozens More Die in Syrian Violence, Activists Say.

Saeed Malekpour’s death sentence.

Elsewhere, The Price of Dissent in Saudi Arabia.

Praise Arab Spring, except for antisemitism.

The treatment of immigrants in Greece is terrible.

At Least 5,400 Killed in Syria

Navi Pillay details what’s happened in Syria:

“Navi Pillay expressed fears that the deliberate stirring of sectarian tensions may plunge Syria into civil war. She said there are strong indications of ongoing crimes against humanity and again appealed for President Bashar Assad’s government to be referred to the International Criminal Court.

Standing before the 193-member General Assembly, Pillay said tens of thousands of people, including children, have been arrested, more than 18,000 reportedly are still arbitrarily detained, and thousands more are reported missing. Another 25,000 people are estimated to have sought refuge in neighbouring countries, and more than 70,000 are estimated to be internally displaced, she added.

The UN high commissioner for human rights said the use of torture by Syrian security forces is widespread in interrogation and detention facilities, citing information from army defectors. She called reports of sexual violence, particularly the rape of men and boys in places of detention “particularly disturbing.”

The General Assembly is expected to consider a nonbinding resolution similar to the Security Council resolution that Russia and China vetoed on Feb. 4.

The resolution backs an Arab League plan that calls for Assad to hand power to his vice-president and allow creation of a unity government to clear the way for elections. There are no vetoes in the assembly, and diplomats said a vote on the Arab-sponsored resolution could take place late this week.

In her speech, Pillay deplored the ongoing assault on the central city of Homs, which reportedly has killed 300 people in the last 10 days, and said her office has received similar accounts of intensifying assaults and worsening humanitarian situations in Zabadani, Dar’a and al-Rastan.

“The risk of a humanitarian crisis throughout Syria is rising,” she said.

Pillay said credible reports indicate more than 5,400 people were killed last year, including military personnel who refused to shoot civilians. She said it’s been almost impossible to update the death toll in the past two months because of the extreme difficulty in verifying events on the ground, but “we are certain that the number of dead and injured continue to rise every day.”

She accused Syrian security forces and government-backed militias of using a “shoot-to-kill” policy to crush peaceful protests.”

Robert Faurisson Meets Friends

Hope Not Hate reminds us that Robert Faurisson has friends in high places:

“Veteran French Holocaust Denier Robert Faurisson has been feted by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the 2nd international conference on Hollywoodism and Cinema, held earlier this month in Terhan.

Faurisson is believed to have been one of up to 48 foreign visitors at the conference which claimed to prove that a US/Zionist agenda was being pursued by Hollywood films. Also in attendance were Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Mohammad Hosseini, and his deputy in cinematic affairs, Javad Shamaghdari.

According to the Iranian Government TV channel, Press TV, the event discussed “five principle topics namely ‘Narration in Hollywood,’ ‘Role of Cinema in the World Awakening,’ ‘The Role of Hollywoodism and Human Decadence,’ ‘Portrait of Future in Hollywood’ and ‘Hollywoodism and Zionism.'”

Also in attendance at the conference were Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, the French antisemitic “comedian” and supporters of Neturei Karta, an Orthodox Jewish anti-Israeli group. “

Heinz-Christian Strache

Austria’s Far Right, Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache plays the victim after his latest gaff:

“(Reuters) – The leader of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party is taking a public relations beating after refusing to apologize for likening anti-fascist protesters to a Nazi mob and his supporters to Jews.

Heinz-Christian Strache’s comment that “We are the new Jews” to an undercover journalist at a Vienna ball that critics say draws right-wing extremists has caused uproar and triggered at least a temporary setback for his resurgent euroskeptic party. “

Surprisingly, at least 11% of Austrians thought this neofascist in a suit fit to be Austria’s Chancellor, but as the Guardian reminded us in 2008:

“The far-right triumph was greater than its breakthrough in 1999 when Haider’s Freedom party came second in a general election with 27% of the vote and entered government, sparking a crisis that saw Austria isolated internationally.

Strache, who has been associated with neo-Nazi militants who deny the Holocaust, according to a court ruling, and who wants a new government ministry created to manage the deportation of immigrants, wound up his campaign at the weekend by calling Muslim women who wear the burqa “female ninjas” “

The Indy has more:

“The Viennese ball might have escaped with UNESCO’s rap on the knuckles, had it not been for an initially unreported anti-Semitic tirade delivered from Strache’s ballroom box to some 3,000 of his right wing guests last Friday, describing Austria’s far-right as the “New Jews”.

By yesterday it had become the focus of a blistering political row about everyday anti-Semitism and the disturbing, yet seemingly inexorable, rise of popular right-wing Austrian nationalism.

Referring to the protesters outside, Mr Strache told his audience they should not be prepared to have their “wonderful cultural party” ruined by protesters whom he described as “anti-democratic perpetrators of violence”. He then claimed the violence outside was like “Kristallnacht” – the 1938 Nazi pogrom that foreshadowed the Holocaust – and declared to his ball guests: “We are the new Jews!” Reports in the Austrian press subsequently revealed that Strache’s Freedom Party aide, Klaus Nittmann, had referred to the yellow star the Nazi regime forced Jews to wear and told ball guests: “Organisations behind the ball end up getting a Jewish Star pinned on them.”

And in what was seen by many as adding insult to injury, last Friday’s Vienna student ball just happened to fall on Holocaust remembrance day – the anniversary of the Soviet army’s liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. Eva Glawischnig, head of Austria’s Green Party, suggested that those who attended were effectively “dancing on the graves of Auschwitz”. The organisers chose to ignore the charge.

Austria’s Jewish community has since been sufficiently outraged and insulted to demand that state prosecutors investigate Strache. Austria’s ruling centrist People’s Party described his words as a “slap in the face for all victims of the Nazis’ criminal regime”. Strache’s Freedom Party dismissed the criticism as “artificial and ridiculous outrage”, while Strache himself said he did not intend to “play down the agony forced upon the Jews”.

Yet his outburst has raised more disturbing questions about his party, an organisation which is now Austria’s second political force. It made huge gains in recent Vienna city elections with a virulently Islamophobic campaign.”

So the spectre of fascism hasn’t really died, just changed into a sharper suit and plays the victim.

Baba Amr in Homs

The Washington Post’s coverage is worth a read:

“Bombs fall, bullets fly, cocks crow — and a rainbow appears. The battle in Homs on livestream,” The Post’s Liz Sly wrote on Twitter early Wednesday morning.

It was another day of deadly shelling in Syria, despite declarations from Russia that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is “completely committed” to stopping the fight.

While Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged the international community not to intervene and to allow more time for dialogue with Assad, the city of Homs came under renewed bombardment Wednesday. The BBC reports it’s the “heaviest” yet, as activists say military tanks are rolling in the streets. BBC’s Paul Wood, who has now left Homs after reporting there for the past few days, writes:

Unconfirmed reports claimed that pro-government militiamen known as “shabiha” were going door-to-door and killing indiscriminately.

There are also reports that 18 premature babies died after their incubators failed as a result of power cuts. State TV denied the reports and said Homs hospitals were operating normally.

As many as 100 civilians died in the attacks on Wednesday alone,according to Reuters. Hundreds of amateur videos have been pouring in on YouTube, showing dead bodies, damaged buildings and the grief of family members who have lost their relatives.”

Blogs To Read And One To Avoid, The New Statesman

I found a thoughtful site by Marc Goldberg. He makes sharp observations and writes well.

At the other end of the scale is Ben White, a would-be writer and anti-Israeli obsessive. For some inexplicable reason the New Statesman has given him a platform. Now I am all for criticism of governments but White’s monomania beggars belief.

Whilst revolts of rippled across the Middle East the last year White’s eyes remain firmly focused on what Israelis are doing.

Whilst the dictatorship in Syria shells its own civilians and is responsible for the murder of thousands in the past year, White scrutinises Israelis.

I can’t help feeling that the rest of the region deserves a look in, all 300 million.

Ben White was the author of this appalling piece, Is It Possible to Understand the Rise in Anti-Semitism?

Shuggy picked it apart.

The anti-racist blog, Bob From Brockley covered White previously in Poor research and poor reasoning.

Finally, I had never realized that the New Statesman had such a racist readership, evidence by another thread and the comments about the BBC’s poor decision to censor the word “Palestine”. If the New Statesman can’t be troubled to deal with the anti-Jewish racists that pollute its comment boxes then I think it is one to avoid.

Homs, Syria

This video detailing events in Homs, Syria makes for distressing but necessary viewing.

Update 1: PRI describes what is happening in Homs:

“Dayem said shelling has been going on for hours in his hometown. They will stop at 7 p.m. — their normal time. Dayem said shelling goes on all day, every day, from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m.

“That’s the way we live now,” Dayem said. “This is not a normal life.”

Dayem said in addition to the shelling, venturing outside puts you at risk of being shot by a sniper merely for crossing the street. Kids as young as 8 and 9 years old know that they can’t walk outside, they have to run.

“That isn’t a life. A kid has to run to cross the street so he doesn’t get shot by a sniper,” Dayem said.

Before the current outburst of violence, Dayem said the presence of Arab League monitors had actually forced the army to lessen their attacks. But with the monitors having pulled back, violence is escalating.

“They did a big massacre three days ago,” Dayem said.”

The “Illuminati Factor”, Racism And The Palestine Telegraph

[Apologies, by necessity this post has links to racist web sites, as a public record. Sorry.]

The Palestine Telegraph is fairly popular amongst Western supporters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, even the odd liberal Peeress read it.

That’s not too surprising, as its published in the West and has very little connection to the daily lives of people in the Middle East, rather it is a vehicle for racism against Jews.

Its pages are filled with salacious stories, plain lies and tales of “Jewish conspiracies”.

Any literate person, without a racist inclination, would see the mixture of scurrilous rumours printed as facts and conspiracy theories for what they really are, a cover for racism.

Nevertheless, as my recent exchange with a PSC supporter showed some fairly intelligent people seem to like it.

So for the sake of the public record and before it vanishes, here is one of the Palestine Telegraph’s pieces from 2010 in full. Let us hope that the penny drops with a few PSC supporters before it is too late:


Whose world are we really living in?

  • PDF

World, February 14, 2010 (Pal Telegraph) – Our eyes it is said are the windows to our souls and in turn the gateway to our hearts and minds, determining what we see and feel, giving us a Conscience, which helps us to judge right from wrong, good from evil.

But just how many of us exercise this Human Sense, how many of us actually “see” and absorb what is real and what is unreal. Following from this, we must then have to ask a pertinent question- what is “reality”? Whose realities are we all living in and is it one that we, as moral members of the Human Race have willingly chosen to follow?

There are sadly far too many sleeping Consciences belonging to the thousands (if not millions) of people who choose to be Sheeple, as David Icke refers to them, totally oblivious of the “real world,” living in their own makeshift cocoon, their very own Matrix world, and unaware of the suffering and oppression that is being played out in those countries/States so far away from their shores. They perpetuate the sayings “not in my backyard”, “nothing to do with me”, “I am not interested and don’t want to get involved in politics or affairs that do not directly affect myself, my family or my way of life or my financial status!!

Is this acceptable in the 21st Century, which supposedly, has advanced mankind’s knowledge and understanding and tolerance of the Human Family.

How many of these self-centred righteous “me, me, me people” actually know or understand?? Do they not want to know that what affects their foreign neighbours will affect them sooner if not later, that time has a way to catch up, to do to them what they have done to others?

In the last century, we had quite a few devastating and hideous Wars that sacrificed the lives of millions upon millions of innocent people, but how many of the world’s community today understands the real reasons for these past atrocities- what on earth were they all for??

Both World Wars 1 and 2 affected not only the parties involved but had widespread repercussions that through time, brought unwelcome changes to some, and this in turn has caught up with us, avenging some of us savagely. In politics Time alas does not heal old wounds but festers and grows inside some of us, ticking away like a time bomb!!

At school, we all accepted the version of history that we were spoon-fed by the “Establishment”; after all, they knew better than us; they were our “experts, our intelligent academia”. They knew what they thought we needed to know!! But as events have slowly unfolded, some of us, “enlightened” ones, the Light workers, who are inquisitive, like exercising our minds independently and preferring to ask endless questions, do our own research, have found to our dismay that our “History” was and is a myth, a lie, full of deceit, and deliberate propaganda in order to sway our outlook and understanding and perceptions, enhancing and facilitating the agenda of a small group of Elite people in charge of “mind controlling” us!!

It turns out that WW1 and WW2 were planned in advance for the sake of a group following the dictates of Zionism, a non religious socio-political Ideology which puts their leaders at the top of a Pyramid, while the rest of mankind, their “servants” are piled in a heap right at the bottom, unaware of what is being instigated at the pinnacle of this structured pyramid!! It is not too dissimilar to a Social Class Ladder: the working class, that is the masses or, I prefer to use a stronger and more apt term, the Servants/Slaves; then we have the Middle class, the middle men who in turn receive their delegated orders from the higher echelons of society, their MASTERS, the Elite, Aristocracy, the “Illuminati Factor” in fact, the billionaires in Power, who are covertly controlling our world and our communities and lives, choosing methods that are abhorrent to a fair, just ethical moral Society.

These Masters, controlled by such luminaries as the Rothschild Dynasty, have been working in the wings establishing their Corporate Financial and Imperialist ,Colonialist Empire, getting richer by the day, their power increasing by the hour, while their servants, their minions, their puppets do all the hard work, shed blood sweat and tears, and physical and mental sacrifice.

“When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader….This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” (- Plato )

Along with the increase of their personal wealth and power, their abuse and oppression has also been scaringly increasing at an abnormally fast and alarming rate, a level which has cost the lives of so many millions of innocent people, but then servants/slaves have always been expendable for these Imperial Tyrants who actually thrive on the death and destruction of the unsuspecting Masses under their thumb. We are the unwilling subjects for their sacrificial demonic pyre that is taking our lives to the depths of hell!!

What are we faced with now in the 21st Century?? Have our lives and peace of mind been placated?? Have we learnt from the past mistakes of Man’s History? Is our history inter-linked to our present and the possible outcome of our future??

The first few years of the new century has experienced far too much bloodshed. In the last years of the last century, we faced the Bosnian war and the first Gulf War in Iraq, killing thousands of innocent Iraqis, who then had to face the Sanctions, imposed by the bully and controller of the UNITED NATIONS, the Zionist controlled USA and its partner in crime Britain, whose past colonial practices are accountable for much of what has transpired in the hot bed of bloodshed in the Middle East, against the majority Muslim Arabs, the new CRUSADE of the 21st Century for our new Imperial Neo-Con Tyrants of the Illuminati/Skull/Bones/ Zionist variety. These inhuman sanctions, which the majority of the members of the U.N are shamefully guilty of and a party to, sentenced to death over one million Iraqis, 500,000 of whom were children (children whose death Madeleine Albright cruelly and insensitively proclaimed ” the price was worth it”) and also the Unborn who were deprived of their quality of life due to regular bombardment of Depleted Uranium, causing untold suffering and illnesses, some of which were carcinogenic, producing deformed offspring, tumours etc, even among the cannon fodder soldiers belonging to the Coalition Killers themselves from the USA and Britain, which their respective Governments, still to this day, deny any links with- pathetically and euphemistically called “Gulf war syndrome”, or as I would prefer to rename it – US OPERATION DEATH SYNDROME.

These Elite NeoCon Tyrants (1A) are running the show at present, arrogantly getting bolder and bolder, abusing all moral values and principles of universally accepted and recognized International Law, the tenets of the Geneva Convention, which was supposedly after WW2 intended to protect the Human Rights of all Peoples of all Nations, granting them their God given Right to Peace, Tolerance, Freedom, genuine Democracy with Justice and fair play.p>

But what is the reality for the peoples of Afghanistan, Iraq Palestine?? The former two have been blown to smithereens, especially Iraq, a Nation with an Ancient history and civilization, much, much older than the “creation” of the USA by its White Colonial Settlers!! Very much akin in fact to the “creation” of the “Jewish” state of Israel, both ironically, built on the blood sacrifice of its original indigenous peoples whose history and ancestry dates back to pre biblical times, pre Judaism and the “Biblical Israel” that had only lasted a couple of hundred years prior to the Roman Colonial Empire.

USA and Canada were systematically cleansed of its indigenous people- the Native Red Indians, as were the Aztecs/Incas of South America by the Colonial barbaric Spanish Conquistadors, and the Aborigines of Australia.

Palestine shares the same barbaric history with America’s Native Red Indians, except Palestinian cleansing is still on going and their homeland has been drastically fading away into the brutal Imperialist hands of Zionism and its overall Master “Lord” Rothschild whose Empire stretches across the globe and is not just limited to the Middle East, where, tragically for its people, he has chosen to build his Palace, his Temple, in Jerusalem , the heart of the world, the epicentre from where he plans to rule the world. (1B)

His “Israel” is one we are all told, is where the only “democracy” exists and thrives in the Middle East and where thankfully for us all, George Bush so generously phrased it, resides the “Man of Peace” to whom we owe our gratitude”, Sharon, the Butcher of Palestinians.

“Democracy”- a word Western Leaders breathe with such fiery passion but do they actually understand its true definition and, does it realistically exist or practiced to the letter of its meaning:

1) Government by the people or their elected representatives

2) Control of any organisation by its members

3) A Political or social unit governed ultimately by ALL its members

4) The practice or spirit of Social Equality

5) A social condition of classlessness and Equality

6) The common people, especially as a political force

Do any of the criteria from these various definitions actually exist within Western Society and culture?? Are they all a free classless Society where equality abounds supreme? Do their “elected” leaders truly represent the very people that put them in their privileged positions of authority?? Do they practice the Human spirit of social equality??

Just how many of us have experienced or observed such a Utopian world as this Western democracy boasts so proudly about? Where is it? Which country has it? Why doesn’t the majority of the world’s population live in it if it truly exists?

Certainly it is non existent in the UK where there still thrives a a divided Class tier society- the working/Middle classes, usually the poor within this Community, and then the Upper Class, the Elite, the billionaires, the millionaires. This tier exists and is reflected in the differing standards between the two groups, in their lifestyles, their education and prospects in life, and future well being.

But is one man’s Utopia another man’s hell!!? Perhaps this Utopia can be found in the bastion of all “democracies” that is, in the centre of intellectual, religious Political, Socio- Economic Supremacy, “Israel?” (2)

Here we have a racist State that was “created” for the sole purpose of housing Exclusivity to the morally superior Jews only. This they justify based on what they claim, a bit like George Bush himself, “Divine” intervention and selection, that is, they were the “Chosen Ones”. But what is wrong with this? How can the God of the Universe, the Mentor, Creator and Father of Mankind, in all His infinite Mercy and Love, justify this biased exclusivity, to the tragic cost of the rest of Humanity? Surely God should love us all equally and not turn His back on the rest of His Family??

We then have another scenario where these Jews biblically justify their violent actions against the people of biblical Palestine because it is “ordained to them”, written in their holy scriptures, their Torah/Talmud and the Old Testament in Deuteronomy in which, when they sacked Jerusalem upon arriving from afar, from “distant lands”, God supposedly gave them permission to slaughter everyone in sight, men, women, children, young and old, and only saving and taking for themselves the virgin young girls!!

Numbers 31:13-18, 32-35 (KJV)

“And Moses said unto them: Have ye saved all the women alive?
Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

But all the women, children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. (http://www.come-and-hear.com/supplement/ot-select.html)

This Divine right has perpetuated, throughout history right into the 21st Century.

This Scofflaw State that is America’s greatest friend, her bosom pal, that bleeds dry the taxpayers of the USA and Europe! :

“If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison for the land, or find some rich man or benefactor who will provide a garrison on your behalf (Vladimir Jabotinsky)

So what is so great about Israel’s boasted “only civilized democracy in the Middle East”?

Here we have a Nation that is comprised of West/East European immigrants, the vast majority of whom have not an ounce of true Semitic Jewish blood or ancestry, but are Converts, and who, for the most part, are totally irreligious and follow, not a faith but a racist ideology/dogma, Zionism.(3)

What does this Zionism represent for us all, especially the Natives of the Middle East and why is it being funded by the USA?

(http://www.palestinemonitor.org/factsheet/Raiding%20the%20US%20Treasury.htm

There exists today a tragedy being played out in Iraq and Palestine which was carefully planned and executed by the Israeli NeoCons of USA. Their illegal war has inflicted thousands of deaths, killing, maiming and turning a nation of people into paraplegics and cancer sufferers, while thousands of others are being indiscriminately imprisoned and tortured and tormented, caged in by Zionist run concentration camps. Palestinians have endured this, not for a year, like the wretched Iraqis, but for gone on 60 years!

Iraq has its Abu Ghraib, Afghanis have Guantanamo and Palestinians have: Facility 1391

“(O)ne of the darker corners of Israel.” (3a)

“No country in peacetime, not even the Soviets or the Red Chinese in the heyday of their Gulags – has held as many prisoners per capita as the nation of Israel. It is one of the few nations that will not officially renounce the use of torture. It has long been high on the list of the offenders compiled by Amnesty International. The London Times Magazine did an extensive exposé on Israeli torture in the 1970s, the 1980s and 1990s. The inescapable fact is that Israel was born and built by invasion, murder, and theft. Such injustice requires the use of force and terror to maintain its power.”

(http://www.solargeneral.com/library/jewishsupremacism.pdf )

Hunger for power and domination is one of their goals, which they are gradually achieving through the unflinching support of such notaries as the U.S.A’s George Bush and the UK’s Blair under the tutelage of their masters- Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Feith, Cheney, Kissinger and of course Rothschild himself no less. These NeoCons have been another “Godsend” for Israel which throughout its creation, in 1948, has expanded its initial borders and has encroached on Palestinian land and Human Rights.(4)

“The removal of Arabs bodily from Palestine is part of the Zionist plan to “spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment…Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried away discreetly and circumspectly.” Theodore Herzl,

“Zionist colonization must either be terminated or carried out against the wishes of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, be continued and make progress only under the protection of a power independent of the native population – an iron wall, which will be in a position to resist the pressure to the native population. (Jabotinsky) http://www.cactus48.com/verses.html

We are told that Israel is a poor tiny little State, trying to defend itself, surrounded by heathen aggressive neighbours, The Arabs, majority of whom, if not all, are Semites, belonging to both the Muslim, Christian and Jewish faiths. (4B)

How can Israel be such a poor defenceless little State when she is the second largest Nuclear country in the world with huge stockpiles of Nuclear warheads, Chemical and biological weapons (5) and is the biggest country that exercises extensive espionage on its Allied friends/supporters/beneficiaries, having stolen highly sensitive military data from the USA and sold it to such partners as China and India.(6). But who holds Israel accountable for her nuclear arsenal (hidden in the Negev (7) which individuals like Vannunu tried to expose to the World and which cost him his freedom, taking years out of his life!

Israeli Nuclear Policies Threaten World Peace which threatens a Worldwide nuclear holocaust, all part of Israel’s foreign policy, defense strategy.

One Israeli Professor and military historian went so far as to state that –

‘We Could Destroy All European Capitals ‘ and hinted that Israel could avenge the holocaust by annihilating millions of Germans and other Europeans.” is this the true realities of Israel .

The only option that has been given to Palestinians is to follow

“the road of Apartheid and the continued Nazification of Israel itself. These are indeed strong words. Israel is guilty of implementing policies of collective punishment, extra-judicial executions (without trials), legalized torture, the creation of Bantustans, the ghetto-ization of entire villages all point to the “Nazification” of Israel’ (7B)

while a Zionist minister calls for incinerating Damascus, Beirut – Avigdor Lieberman, (a cousin of the US Senator Lieberman) said Israel should “incinerate Beirut and Damascus” in retaliation for resistance attacks in the West Bank. An Israeli cabinet minister said Wednesday the Zionist state should carry out devastating air strikes against Syria and Lebanon if Palestinian resistance groups continued to fight Israel’s colonialist occupation. He continues:

“We should take advantage of our military superiority and visit Syrian and Lebanon with destruction for their support of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.” Lieberman had called for bombing several Arab and Islamic capitals including Tehran and the Aswan Adam in Egypt. The current Israeli government includes some of the most extremist right-wing figures who openly advocate ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland.’ (7C)

What kind of democratic Utopia does Israel have when most of its leaders committed massacres throughout their youth/adult lives? (7D)

Why in this perfect democracy that people would just “die for” does Israel have so much drug trafficking, Slavery and prostitution, a country run by mafia gangsters who operate obscene practices, carrying out terror and corruption throughout the country, (and abroad) led by another criminal and self professed murderer, the butcher immigrant Ariel Sharon, along with his fraudulent sons.

“”And you can write that I am disgrace to humanity, I don’t mind, on the contrary. Let’s make a deal: I will do all I can to expel the Arabs from here, I will do all I can to increase anti-Semitism, and you will write poems and essays about the misery of the Arabs and be prepared to absorb the Yids I will force to flee to this country and teach them to be a light unto the gentiles. How about it?” (Ariel Sharon to Amos Oz 1982) (10)

While George Bush boasts the moral virtues of the “Man of Peace”, Sharon and the democracy of Israel, it appears that other communities do not share this high powered view, according to Ed Blanche, a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London:

“Israel has always boasted that it was an island of democracy in a sea of dictatorships and autocratic regimes in the Middle East. But a study by the Israel Democracy Institute and the Gutman Center published Friday showed that support for democracy among Israeli Jews had plunged to its lowest level in 20 years, down to 77 percent from the steady 90 percent of recent years. That reflects what many see as a troubling erosion of Israelis’ perception of democracy and the necessity for it to exist.

In public opinion polls relating to support for democracy conducted in 32 countries between 1999 and 2001, Israel now ranks in the lowest tier.”

Ironically, George Bush reveals some shocking truths which unfortunately he blindly does not acknowledge exists and is rife within America’s greatest friend and ally:

:”There is another humanitarian crisis, spreading and yet hidden from view. Each year, an estimated eight to nine hundred thousand human beings are bought, sold, or forced across the world’s borders. Among them are hundreds of thousands of teenage girls, and others as young as five, who fall victim to the sex trade. This commerce in human life generates billions of dollars each year, much of which is used to finance organized crime.

There is a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable. The victims of sex trade see little of life before they see the very worst of life, an underworld of brutality and lonely fear. Those who create these victims, and profit from their suffering, must be severely punished. Those who patronize this industry debase themselves and deepen the misery of others. And governments that tolerate this trade are tolerating a form of slavery.” (10b)

George Bush ought to take a leaf or two out of his “moral and ethical sermon” and punish Israel for this inhuman behaviour that debases women and young girls. As he himself stated: This commerce in human life generates billions of dollars each year, much of which is used to finance organized crime”. And he should know, as his own father’s business ventures are involved, along with his mentor Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld

Surely Israel does not need the billions it receives from American taxpayers as it receives ample funds from this evil trade as well as the revenue it also gets from its Arms and Drugs smuggling and espionage, selling secrets that its agents, be they Art students or Mossad, sell to such nations as China and India, as well as trading in Human Organs at the expense of dead young Palestinians whose organs are taken out and sold to world markets or used within Israel itself. (10C)

It therefore appears that Human morality applies to Israelis, the “Blood royals”, and not to the “Amalekite children of the Arabs”. .The United States government is being utilized as “the hammer of Amalek. This is the true meaning of the phrase “clash of civilizations” and the Arabs had better prepare themselves for months or years of slow-motion genocide – all this attack is intended therefore, to implement the rabbinic injunction of exterminating “the ArabAmalek (and all those “who act like Amalek”).

“And in this fashion, we will end the war and settle our forefathers’ account with Egypt, Assyria, and Aram -David Ben Gurion where ” Not one village, not one tribe should be left.” Joseph Weitz and so the need for “an iron wall, which will be in a position to resist the pressure to the native population- Vladimir Jabotinsky

America’s NeoCons and the rest of the Zionist crew in the Pentagon, the White House and to a degree the present British Government are steeped in this doctrine.

Have we as collective Humanity reached our point of no return?

“By tricking the population into acceptance of greater and greater atrocities, the dictator will eventually reach a position where the people will be too afraid to examine what they themselves have become. Trapped by the fear of examining themselves, such people turn into the most fanatical of the dictator’s supporters. They dare not look at the dictator’s evil for to do so is to look at their own. Once the dictator can trick his people past that point, they are his slaves” – Mike Rivero

How much longer must we all be subjugated by the arch-terrorist Israeli state”, founded in terror by terrorists, and whose “Zionism”, a “colonization adventure which stands or falls by the question of armed force” is based on Racist ideology and exclusivity!

That is the reality of the State of Israel, its Allies, Partners and offshoots, and it’s so called democracy and love for freedom and peace, whose overall Doctrine works to the detriment, security and Well being of Mankind and World Peace.

Do we in all honesty, want to continue living in this Matrix world of theirs??

maisoon

1A) “Reality has never been a constraint” to Neoconservatives. “They are not the kind of people that America as a nation are proud of.”

On video: Karen Kwiatkowski

1B) http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9DCD41A2-E372-4732-8F1A-411EC28F603D.htm

2) http://www.texemarrs.com/jewish_master_race.htm

3) http://counterpunch.org/christison11082003.html

3a) http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/29_01_04_c.asp

The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1084736,00.html

4) http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=3

(4B) (http://www.thehandstand.org/archive/december2003/articles/semitic.htm

5) Israel’s Weapons of Mass : http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1082542148627&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724

and http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/11/18/international0156EST0428.DTL

http://www.aljazeerah.info/26%20o/Israel’s%20Weapons%20of%20Mass%20Destruction%20By%20Hussain%20Khan.htm

6) http://www.alternet.org/members/story.html?StoryID=17820

7) http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=14445

(7B) http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/4826/PHPSESSID=41d39d80ec3ac8c527b990a9cd5906f0

7C) http://www.counterpunch.com/fredman03032004.html

7D) http://www.allaahuakbar.net/jew/israeli_massacres.htm

8) http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/27_12_03_e1.asp gangs

8B) http://www.wrmea.com/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm#STRATEGIC Israel’s worth

9) http://www.rense.com/general34/esde.htm

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=238653

10) http://www.voicesofpalestine.org/ArielSharon.asp

10b) http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=238653

10C) http://www.alkhilafah.info/massacres/palestine/index14.htm

11) http://www.christusrex.org/www2/koestler/

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3007neocon_hoax.html

Behind the Iraq Dossier Hoax:Intelligence Was Cooked in Israel Jeffrey Steinberg

By maisoon August 2006

Thanks to Martin.

Slices Of World

Meant to post this a few days back, but forgot

There are plenty of things going on in the world, but we shouldn’t forget the dog whistles of racism that Jeff Goldberg finds in the race for the US Presidency:

“Dog-whistling — the use of coded, ambiguous language to appeal to the prejudices of certain subsets of voters — is one of the darkest political arts. In this race, Newt Gingrich is streets ahead of his nearest competitor in its use. In addition to his comments about black children working as janitors, he has repeatedly referred to Obama as the country’s “food-stamp president.”

The genius of dog-whistling is its deniability. It would be difficult for a figure such as Rush Limbaugh to run for public office, given his record of fairly straightforward race-baiting. (Limbaugh, who in the words of Harvard Law School’s Randall Kennedy is an “excellent entrepreneur of racial resentment,” has been on a tear lately. He has accused Obama — who he says “talks honky” around white people — and the first lady of abusing public funds as payback for the ill-treatment afforded their ancestors.)

But “food-stamp president” is just indirect enough that Gingrich is protected from detrimental blowback, at least during the largely white Republican primaries.

Kennedy, who studies the role of race in national elections, told me last week of a rule he uses to measure whether a candidate’s appeal to prejudice will succeed: If it takes more than two sentences for a critic to explain why a dog-whistle is a dog-whistle, the whistler wins. Gingrich seems to understand this, and so, despite criticism from blacks, has made the term “food-stamp president” a staple of his stump speeches.”

Elsewhere Celebrity Deathmatch: Who Has More Celebrity Endorsements? makes strange reading, Ron Paul is rather popular.

The ADL’s Center on Extremism and Research’s blog is worth a read, with a fine post entitled Racists and Bigots to Descend on CPAC Conference in Washington, DC

“The February 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual event that features a wide variety of speakers from conservative circles, will host a session on “the failure of multiculturalism” that will include racist Peter Brimelow as a speaker. “

It exposes Pamela Geller’s latest activities:

“The latest outgrowth of the trans-Atlantic cooperation between anti-Muslim activists was announced on January 17 by Pamela Geller, head of Stop Islamization of American (SIOA). Geller announced on her blog that SIOA, an organization that promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam, is joining forces with its sister organization in Denmark, Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE), whose campaigns against Islam in Europe have influenced Geller’s campaigns in the U.S.”

Keith Kahn-Harris’s reviewed Gilad Atzmon’s recent book:

“The book is a peculiar mix of polemic, philosophising and personal narrative which creates a veneer of radicalism and up to date thinking. But, beneath it all, Atzmon is more conventional that he thinks he is. Ultimately, The Wandering Who? boils down to a number of hoary old anti-semitic tropes:

When Jews appear to be assimilating, they are really infiltrating and subverting.

When Jews identify themselves as Jews, they are primitive separatists.

Jews are obsessively concerned with attaining power and influence.

Jews are responsible for the hatred they attract.

The holocaust myth is simply a Jewish strategy to gain power through the world’s guilt. The Wandering Who? is an anti-Semitic book certainly, but is it a dangerous book? So ludicrous are his arguments and so pompous is his tone that it is tempting to dismiss Atzmon as a crank.

More genuinely disturbing is the fact that this book was published at all. Zero Books is a small company that has published some excellent quirky philosophy and intellectually rigorous criticism; they should have seen the book for what it was. (The book is endorsed by figures like Richard Falk, John Mearsheimer and Karl Sabbagh who, while strong critics of Israel and Zionism, should have heard alarm bells ringing when they saw the chapter entitled ‘Swindler’s List’). Ironically, it is precisely Atzmon’s Jewish background that gains him this platform, providing an alibi for his antisemitism.

Surely, that should be ‘their’ not ‘his’, not bad but too charitable toward Atzmon’s allies.

On a related theme, Germany’s old problem, neo-Nazi gangs into focus.

News International and phone hacking is unlikely to die down as the Police have been given access to Data Pool 3.

Belatedly the Guardian admits mistakes, probably printed on page 52, bottom column in small print.

How Afghanistan boys walked to Europe.

At the Debate Link, the tale of rigging the system so your opponents can’t get on the ballot.

Finally, this depressing piece from the JC, Fogel murderer’s family praises ‘hero’ killer.

Jourdon Anderson’s Spectacular Letter

This letter deserves re-printing across the web:

“Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams’s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson. “

Conservatives, IQ and Bookshops

Some snippets I found, Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism.

Look at the 20 Most Beautiful Bookstores in the World, I thought the one in Buenos Aires worth a visit.

An informative piece on Russia and Syria:

“Russian support for the Syrian regime – founded when Bashar al-Assad’s father Hafez seized power in 1970 – is still shaped in part by Cold War-era considerations. Hafez al-Assad’s Ba’ath Party (like its cousin in Iraq) portrayed itself as a force for socialist-style modernization. More importantly, it was staunchly anti-American and anti-Israeli, and quickly turned to the USSR as its principal source for weapons and military advisors.

Those relations continued even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks arms transfers, estimates the value of Russian arms sales to Syria at $162 million per year in both 2009 and 2010. The total value of Syrian contracts with the Russian defense industry is likely more than $4 billion. Russia also leases a naval facility at the Syrian port of Tartus, giving the Russian navy its only direct access to the Mediterranean, and Moscow its only remaining military base outside the former Soviet Union. Moscow fears that Assad’s fall would jeopardize both its lucrative arms contracts and its access to Tartus.”

Excerpts from Nato report on Taliban at BBC News.

Romney supporters raise millions.

A legal backgrounder on Julian Assange’s appeal at the Supreme Court. The Guardian’s coverage.

Is Alabama’s crackdown on immigration coming back to haunt it?

Britain: Ninety Two Violent Antisemitic Assaults In 2011

92 violent antisemitic assaults in 2011, that figure stood out when I read the CST’s latest report, Antisemitic Incidents Report 2011.

That means seven violent antisemitic assaults against Jews take place every month.

But even that figure understates the problem, last year there were 586 incidents.

That is 11 every week, against Jews.

All of that occurring in 21st century Britain, not the 1930s, unbelievable.

The CST has more.

Update 1:

The Beeb has more, Greater Manchester has highest anti-Semitic crime rate in UK.