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Origin Of The Six Day War

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The origins of the Six-Day war that changed the face of the Middle East are very different from the common historical narrative. The entire affair was a mistake engendered by an intelligence lapse that may or may not have been deliberate. I learned this during an interview with Jonathan Pollard at the Butner Federal Prison where he is serving a life sentence for spying for Israel, itself a travesty and miscarriage of justice that no one seems to have the nerve to rectify. But that is another story. What Pollard, who had access to highly classified material during the period he served with Naval Intelligence, volunteered to me is both shocking and disturbing because what otherwise might be described as a comedy of errors has had tragic consequences and put Israel in a hazardous situation from which it appears unable to extricate itself.

 

According to Pollard, Soviet intelligence informed Nasser that Israel intended to attack Egypt, which was false. Pollard says it is not clear if this was simply a failure of Soviet intelligence or a deliberate provocation to start a war in the Middle East. Whatever the reason, Nasser believed the report and ordered his air force to mobilize. Israeli intelligence got wind of this and reported that Nasser was planning to attack Israel, which he had no intention of doing. The Soviets also told him that Israel was massing troops at the Syrian border. Based on this erroneous conclusion, the Israeli air force struck and demolished the Egyptian air force in its entirety and then attacked Egypt, pushing its army back until Israel controlled all of Sinai. Because Syria, with Egypt, was technically part of the same country, the United Arab Republic, a nation in name only, Israel moved against Syria and seized the Golan Heights. It also bombed the American ship, the Liberty, claiming it had been a mistake. Israeli troops also moved against Jordan, which had entered the war reluctantly, and took all of Jerusalem that Jordan had captured during the 1948 war as well as Gaza and the West Bank, all of which they occupied. In doing this, Israel, created a constant source of friction between Israel and the Palestinians, who had no desire to be part of Jordan and who had rebelled to free themselves from Hashemite rule. The Palestinians played no part in the war and were innocent bystanders who had not fired a shot against Israeli troops. Many of them were displaced and joined the refugee camps to which victims of the 1948 war had fled.

 

Shimon Perez, who served two terms as Israeli prime minister although he was never elected in his own right, came up with the idea of the settlement program, something that in recent years he claimed to regret. Ariel Sharon ordered the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza but the occupation of the West Bank persists, with Israel continuing to expand the settlements there. They have also moved Jews into Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, which they claim as Israeli territory and part of united Jerusalem, the new capital of Israel.

 

When Egypt attacked an unprepared Israel during the Yom Kippur war in order to reverse the results of the 1967 war, its troops were successful in driving Israeli forces back from the Sinai and threatened to invade Israel proper. Golda Meier pleaded with President Nixon to provide her with new aircraft and other armaments she needed to repel the attack but Henry Kissinger advised against it. Nixon overruled her and sent the planes, enabling Israel to beat back the Egyptians and regain the upper hand. That led to the Arab oil boycott that caused Nixon to end the gold standard and let the dollar float freely, changing the course of American economic history. Israel and Egypt made peace, with Israel returning the Sinai in exchange for full diplomatic recognition and trade between the two countries. But no such agreement was reached with Syria and with no one representing the Palestinians, they were powerless to end the Israeli occupation of their territory.

 

And so the stalemate continues, all because the Soviet Union misinformed Nasser of Israel’s intentions. Egypt’s ignominious defeat and the new American policy of providing Israel and Egypt with considerable amounts of aid generated a smoldering resentment in the Arab world and particularly in Egypt because of the military dictatorship established by Mubarak after the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s successor as leader of Al Qaeda, was a physician and dissident in Egypt whom Mubarak imprisoned in one of his cages where prisoners were packed in unsanitary conditions. When he escaped, he joined forces with Bin Laden and encouraged him to declare war against the United States because of its support of Mubarak, whom the revolution in Egypt eventually overthrew, leading to the victory of the Moslem Brotherhood and the Salafist victory in the parliamentary elections. Meanwhile, in Syria the revolt against Assad has become a virtual civil war, with one of the resentments against him being his failure to get the Golan Heights back from Israel.

 

All of this was caused by an accident in history. The Soviet Union is long gone and the Arab socialism it sponsored vanished as well. The Middle East is now an unknown, with the future looking increasingly dangerous and Israel’s position more precarious than it has been in decades, all the result of a failure of intelligence a half a century ago.

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Eye Of Newt

December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Why NOT me? These other guys are nuts.

It seems like a century ago when Newt Gingrich led the charge to overthrow decades of Democratic rule in the House of Representatives using his Contract for America as the blueprint for an agenda that included balancing the budget and term limits. At the time, the Democrats were stale and liberalism an obsolete political philosophy that had hardened into political correctness. What Gingrich did was nothing less than to revolutionize American politics, turning Tim O’Neil’s maxim that all politics was local on its head. Thanks to Gingrich, all politics was now national and he ran the Congressional campaign as if it were a British parliamentary election. The Republicans won and America has never been the same.

But no sooner had he been sworn in as Speaker, he opted to accept a book deal from Rupert Murdock for millions of dollars, violating the rules of the House. Term limits vanished from the agenda. Dick Morris, Bill Clinton’s close advisor, told Clinton to adopt the Republican agenda by balancing the budget and changing the welfare system to end permanent dependence. It worked and Clinton won reelection.

Then Gingrich blew it by closing down the government. The Republicans lost numerous seats in Congress and he resigned. His legacy was his censure by Congress for ethics violations and his party’s defeat. Most wrote him off as finished in politics and it appeared as if he wrote himself off as well. His extramarital conduct became the stuff of legend and he vanished from the political scene, starting a consulting business and authoring countless books, including works of fiction. He married his last mistress and became a Catholic.

When he announced his candidacy for president, most dismissed him off as a has-been with absolutely no chance of winning. As if to confirm this, he took his wife on a cruise in the Greek Islands and most of his staff quit. He announced his intention of staying in the race but this was counted as bravado. He had no money and no organization, yet he had sufficient numbers in the polls to get into the debates, during which he actually sounded sane and he began to attract attention. The radical right, in its quest to stop Mitt Romney, first went with Michele Bachmann, whose over-the-top comments made her seem loony. Then they supported Rick Perry, who turned out to be an idiot. There was the flirtation with Herman Cain, whose campaign imploded in the wake of allegations by women of sexual misconduct. Because Ron Paul opposed aid to Israel, he was anathema to the Evangelicals so his poll numbers have remained in the low teens. Finally there was Newt, who espoused conservative values with sufficient clarity during the debates that he began to pick up support. No one was more surprised by this than Newt himself, who was running in order to keep charging thousands for speaking engagements, receive lucrative book contracts and increase the clientele of his consulting business. It came out that he has made millions as a consultant to the health-care industry and to Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, but none of this halted his sudden rise.

This was a “new” Newt, observers said, more mature and stable, whose new-found religious faith made his past personal transgressions fade into insignificance; he had gone to confession and been forgiven.

So far, his poll numbers have not been affected by the negative ads attacking him in Iowa since most people are concerned about the economy and think Romney is a Wall Street insider, a representative of the old GOP Establishment, which the Tea Party despises. In their search for a candidate of their own, they settled on Newt, with his unadulterated support for capitalism.

But is this really a new Newt? Remember Richard Nixon’s comeback, when commentators described him as the “new Nixon”?

No, that's the old Newt. I'm the new Newt.

He was more self-assured and less strident and looked comfortable in his skin. He bested both Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination and won a close election against Hubert Humphrey. In the wake of the disastrous McGovern campaign, he won his long-sought landslide and seemed to have more power than any president in the past, including Lyndon Johnson, who had self-destructed.

But this was no new Nixon at all. It was the same old Nixon, devious, dishonest and vicious. Under pressure, he cracked and became the first president in American history to resign. Gingrich is made of the same stuff and the Republicans will nominate him at their peril. But what he’s got is an ability to throw the base raw meat the way no other candidate can. His remarks on the Palestinians show he knows how to appeal to key constituencies of the GOP in a powerful way. It would be a mistake to count him out because, like Nixon, he has a subterranean connection to the worst impulses of many Americans and is unafraid to exploit that connection. Democrats, gleeful at the idea that Newt could be the Republican nominee, should remember that they could get what they wish for and come to regret it.

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A Culture Of Death

September 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Vote Perry!

During the first debate among the Republican candidates for president, the moderator began a question to Rick Perry, the governor of Texas with this: “During your eleven years as governor of Texas, you have overseen 234 executions.”  Before he could go any further, thunderous applause filled the Reagan library, lasting several minutes. At the next debate, co-sponsored by the Tea Party Express and CNN, the moderator posed this question to the panel of candidates: “Suppose a young man without health insurance is hit by a car requiring six months hospitalization. How could his expenses by paid for or should we just allow him to die?” Shouts of “Let him die!” filled the auditorium.

Those responses, one suspects, were not a reflection of a small minority of Americans. Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare and Rick Perry’s attacks on Social Security have actually not affected public opinion as liberals have hoped. To the contrary, polls show a growing advantage for Republicans in a generic election for both houses of Congress. And the attacks on Perry from the other candidates have caused no slippage for him in the polls. If anything, they seem to have increased his lead.

What is one to make of this new culture of death that is sweeping America? It demonstrates a total lack of empathy, which means that individuals are concerned only when something affects them directly. I knew a Republican politician who opposed government involvement in health care until a close relative required round-the- clock dialysis. He then sponsored a bill in the state legislature to provide financial support for dialysis, making it virtually free in the state.

There is, one suspects, an element of racism in all of this. White people across the country increasingly resent paying for services provided to indigent blacks because they believe they are shiftless and responsible for their own situation. This goes largely unsaid, except by Hillary Clinton during the desperate hours of her losing candidacy when she went around the country shouting about “hard working white people.” It was a shameless appeal to race that almost pulled it out for her, and yet she remains an American liberal icon.

When Roosevelt was pushing for his New Deal legislation, one of his most important allies was the powerful racist senator from Mississippi, Theodore G. Bilbo, who would go on to argue for the deportation of all blacks in America to Africa. That proved too much even for a Senate that continually held up civil rights legislation and he was forced to leave the Senate. Still, Roosevelt found in him a useful ally because the alliance indicated to the white population that these programs were designed to help white people. Roosevelt never made any move towards civil rights and even his wife, the progressive Eleanor Roosevelt, kept saying that it was too soon to do anything about that. It is only when those programs start to benefit racial minorities that resistance arises.

The one policy of Rick Perry’s that is commendable and which could cost him support is his backing of the rights of children of undocumented immigrants to attend public schools and their further right to attend state universities at in-state tuition. When attacked for this, Perry countered by saying that these were “human beings who deserve to be treated as human beings.” But before one ascribes this to Perry’s munificence, it should be noted that Texas has a burgeoning Mexican population and that his policies are wildly popular with them. He also knows that for a Republican to win the presidency, he must be able to appeal to Hispanics, who are increasingly turned off by the Democratic Party. There is an element of race involved in this as well since many Hispanics resent the power of blacks in the Democratic Party, and choose to identify with the whites.

Adolph Hitler declared himself to be a socialist but he had an interesting spin on this term. He insisted that

Hurry up and die, would you? USA! USA!

socialism was fundamentally about race. If a country is made up of a “volk,” a homogeneous population in which everyone identifies with everyone else like a family, then socialist policies can succeed because the people will want to care for each other. His socialist policies of job creation, through public works, housing, free universities and medical care were highly popular because the German racial state was taking care of its own. In “Being and Time,” Martin Heidegger suggested that humans are different from other species because they have a sense of time, leading them to understand that their time on earth is limited. Because of this, he concluded, they care for each other. Heidegger also concluded that the best person in a nation was the soldier, because he was willing to sacrifice everything, including his life, for his people. When Heidegger bought into National Socialism and became a disciple of Hitler, it was because he shared the notion that caring is linked with race. If you got rid of all the people of color in America, the programs the Tea Party now is attacking would once again become popular. Racialism is at the heart of the Republican Party, notwithstanding several conservative blacks in the party who are treated like pets, tokens to show that Republicans are not racists. These are blacks that identify with the oppressor, much as Jewish Majority Leader Eric Cantor identifies with a party that is largely anti-Semitic. If this is the direction the nation is heading, the future will see much more of this as it becomes commonplace to abolish federal programs that were designed to provide a safety net for Americans. The Bismarckean compromise of Social Democracy to defeat Socialism, which Bismarck hated, is not appreciated in America, which lacks a Social Democratic tradition, so it should come as no surprise that there is support for abolishing the safety net. But it should be remembered that Bismarck invented Social Democracy for a racially pure Germany, a far cry from multi-racial America.

There are forty million people in America classified as poor, with over fifteen percent of the population living below the poverty line. Alas, America has no Jonathan Swift to write America’s version of “A Modest Proposal.” This country can’t even come up with brilliant satire.

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The Curse Of West Texas

September 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

West Texas Cowboy, just like "W", but without the brains.

When some people lament the possibility of yet another Texan as president, they need to consider another aspect of this provenance. The problem is not Texas. Ron Paul is a member of the House of Representatives from Texas. The great Barbara Jordon was from Texas. No, the problem is West Texas. Lyndon Johnson was from West Texas and George W. Bush invented himself as a West Texan. And Rick Perry is from West Texas.

West Texas is notorious for producing recalcitrant and bellicose men. They have that swagger that Bush so exemplified, the cowboy walk that makes them look as through they are headed for a shootout. They are uncompromising and stubborn and brook no criticism. When their minds are made up, they are made up. Around the rest of Texas, they are both loathed and admired because of their combination of strength and recalcitrance.

Lyndon Johnson, whose strength enabled him to get the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid through Congress, also got America deep into the Vietnam War. He dressed down military officers who came to see him in the White House if he didn’t like what they had to say, making them stand throughout the meeting and then summarily dismissing them. For all his greatness, he could be mean, vindictive and petty. He liked to be seen riding his horse, high in the saddle. The result of this West Texas mentality was that there was no criticizing him for what he was doing in Vietnam. The CIA so feared him that they doctored the body count so he wouldn’t come down on them. In a once famous incident, when Johnson was touring Vietnam, an officer said to him, “Mr. President, this is your helicopter,” indicating the one Johnson was to board. Johnson’s reply was, “Son, they are all my helicopters.” And Johnson, much as Bush won the presidency by a few votes because of what was fundamentally a hoax, won election to the Senate from Texas by a handful of votes in what most regard as a fixed election, leading Texans to call him “Landslide Lyndon.” Johnson’s lawyer in that episode was Abe Fortas, whom Johnson later appointed to the Supreme Court and was his choice for Chief Justice until Fortas had to resign because of ethics problems

Pete Seegers’s famous song performed at Woodstock, “The Big Muddy” summed up Johnson’s incredible stubbornness, even when reality was staring him in the face. He kept leading the country in a disastrous war that could not be won unless he nuked North Vietnam. All his bombing raids in the north came to nothing.

Next, there was George W. Bush, who was so determined to be seen as a West Texan that he began speaking

I say, I say, I say, vote fer me!!!

like one and wearing cowboy boots to erase his Andover, Yale and Harvard Business School patina as the scion of a wealthy and powerful New England family. George H. W. Bush, who settled in Texas, was forever the New England patrician and Bush wanted none of it. He managed to become president after a fraudulent election that he “won” by some three hundred-and-something votes in Florida, giving him a victory in the Electoral College while he lost the popular vote. When his “win” was confirmed by a weird Supreme Court decision that went entirely along party line affiliation (except for Stevens who went with the Democrats because he thought Gore would win and name him Chief Justice) Bush morphed into Johnson and got America into the war in Iraq, dismissing General Shinseki for telling him he was going in with too few troops. Like Johnson, there was no talking to “mission accomplished” Bush. George Tenet, the Director of CIA, was so terrified of him that he made his famous “slam dunk” response when Bush asked him whether or not Saddam Hussein had WMDs. And Bush was every bit as arrogant as Johnson, ordering Carl Rove to hang up his jacket at cabinet meetings. The argument that Cheney was really the boss was untrue. Bush was like Henry V, determined to invade France, a project that while successful in the short run, proved to be a disaster in the long run. He ordered the disbanding of the Iraqi army, guaranteeing armed resistance, arranged for Iraq to be governed like a colony, with Americans holding key government positions and George Bremer functioning as a Viceroy. Only when the Iraqis themselves demanded elections did he make democracy the objective of the invasion, after it was clear there really were no WMDs after all.

Which brings us to Rick Perry, the West Texan par excellence. Even in a well-tailored suit, he still wears

Nuke Iran, Yeee Haaawww!!!!

cowboy boots and a gigantic cowboy belt buckle. You have to know exactly where this dude is coming from. And this one has a chip on his shoulder every bit as big as Johnson’s or Bush’s. Johnson’s chip was that the eastern elite looked down on his as a yokel. He knew full well that Jacqueline Kennedy referred to him as “Colonel Cornpone” behind his back. He went to South West Texas State Teachers College and he believed all the Ivy League liberals looked down on him no matter what he achieved. The anger in him was palpable and it exacerbated his aggressiveness.

W has an anger that cannot be assuaged. He knows full well that his parents’ hopes rested with older brother Jeb, but only when Jeb failed to win election to the United States Senate from Texas, did W emerge as the second choice. After he became president, he never consulted with his father and remained distant from him. That rage, like Johnson’s, led him to adopt a bellicose foreign policy in which he offended most of the world and launched a war because of made-up reasons, much as Johnson made up the Tonkin attack on American vessels that led to the resolution justifying military force in Vietnam.

Rick Perry is a true West Texas Aggie, a product of Texas A& M, a university that bears the brunt of “Aggie’ jokes based on the presumed stupidity of its undergraduates, many from, you guessed it, West Texas. When Perry said that if the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, were to come to Texas, “We would treat him real ugly,” that was Perry in a nutshell. It must be remembered that when Johnson was Majority Leader of the Senate, he proclaimed in a speech that “American boys should not fight Asian boys’ wars.” But as president, he filed that away somewhere in the limbo of a desk drawer and sent five hundred thousand American troops to Vietnam. Perry will behave in like manner. And much like Johnson, he will appoint his cronies and contributors to high positions.  Perry knows the elites in Texas look down on him because he grew up dirt poor and is an Aggie. The Yalie Bushes have nothing but contempt for him and he knows it.

Rick Perry says America should never intervene militarily unless it is “absolutely in America’s national interest.” Already, the old Bush neo-cons are attaching themselves to him, plotting a war with Iran. Perry will really get off on that. He will use the threat of Iran’s nukes as a justification. Bill Keller and Thomas Friedman, the elites of the New York Times, supported the war in Iraq, calling for the invasion from their roosts at the top of the elitist tower. Now, they say how sorry they are that they ever did that. Keller uses his reluctance to look like a Latte drinking liberal defeatist as his justification. But once the reasons for the war include not only those Iranian nukes, but also the existential threat to Israel, they will be egging Perry on. And he will lap it up, his six shooters in each hand blazing away. If America elects another West Texan, it will get what  it deserves.

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BUFFET TO BUY GREECE

September 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Opa!!!

Billionaire investor Warren Buffet has announced his intention to buy Greece in order to save the global economy. The purchase price, still to be announced, is expected to be in the neighborhood of two hundred billion dollars, which he plans to raise through a consortium of investors, including Pincus, Warburg and the Blackstone Group. It is Buffet’s contention that for too long, countries like Greece failed to run themselves as “for profit” entities.

Buffet will incorporate Greece as a corporation in Delaware. The new company, Greece, Inc., will abolish the present government and replace it with a board of directors made up of prominent members of the international business community who will begin immediately to conduct a search for its first CEO, with Sergio Marchionnne speculated to be the leading candidate. The Italian Canadian turnaround artist currently heads FIAT, the Italian automaker that has taken over Chrysler and that also includes the luxury brand, Maserati. He also has his eye on reviving SAAB, the former Swedish automaker that has fallen on hard times.

“We see Marchionne as a perfect fit, “Buffet explained. “If anyone can turn around Greece, he’s the one.” Greece, Inc. will be strictly non-union, with a pay scale designed to attract foreign investors. Several Chinese companies have already expressed interest in starting several manufacturing entities, including toy and textile manufacturing. A consortium from Macao has also expressed interest in creating and expanding casino gambling on the Greek Islands, designed to bring in considerable revenue.

In order to combat the lack of a work ethic in Greece, the new company’s motto will be “work or starve.” All state subsidies will end and workers will be expected to work at a minimum wage. They will also be responsible for their own medical care and retirement. The education system will be entirely revamped, with schools dedicated to training workers for specific industries. The universities will drop all extraneous subjects, such as literature and philosophy and will, instead, train young Greeks to enter the work force as employable professionals, particularly as engineers and managers. “We can’t afford to waste money on culture,” Buffet mused. “What Greece needs now are businesses that can compete on the world market.”

Top on the list for moneymaking will be tourism, but on an entirely different level from the past. “Greece must

Excuse me, but did you say "theme park"?

cease to be quaint,” Buffet exclaimed over a lunch of steak and potatoes at his favorite restaurant in Omaha, Nebraska. “We will develop ancient Greek theme parks, such as Sparta, where tourists can enjoy the recreation of the Spartan tradition of fighting, done in traditional costumes. “We expect to attract wealthy lesbians to holiday on Lesbos, where there will be lavish entertainments based on the poetry of Sappho. In other venues, there will be recreations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, including special events exhibits for children. “Disney has expressed a considerable interest in developing the theme parks,” Buffet related. “And there will be luxury hotels with casinos and expensive restaurants that will specialize in the cuisine of ancient Greece. Planned also is a recreation of Vesuvius erupting and destroying Pompeii. Greek tragedies, rewritten to accommodate the sensibilities of American tourists, including happy endings, will be performed at imitation Greek outdoor theaters, where snacks will be sold by Greek youths in traditional costumes.

A special feature, designed to attract a wide audience, will be a staged trial of Socrates, including a mock version of his suicide by drinking imitation hemlock. And tourists will be able to wander through olive groves to hear Plato and Aristotle teaching, but in English instead of ancient Greek. A reproduction of both the Academy and the Lyceum will have comfortable chairs and tables and pleasant restaurants and bars.

There will be a mass expansion of the olive industry and the production of Greek wine, excluding retsina, because of its harsh taste. There will be a major campaign to reintroduce Metaxa brandy, Fidel Castro’s favorite. Castro has agreed to tape a commercial for Metaxa, in which he explains that he never touches rum, and enjoys Cuban cigars only with Metaxa.

Buffet expects to take Greece, Inc. public in two years, paying down Greek’s debt in five. “After that “ he exclaimed, “It will be all profit all the time,” giving rise to countless jobs and a rising GDP. He sees limitless opportunities on the horizon, not just for Greece, but also for Ireland, Portugal and even Spain, if it should come to that. He envisions all of Europe as one vast theme park, including a mock European parliament. “I see this as a model for the world,” he concluded. “The nation state is basically obsolete. They keep going into deeper and deeper debt because they are run without a sound business model. That has to change.”

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RICK PERRY AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT

August 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment


God says turn to the right.

Governor Rick Perry of Texas recently caused a flap with his reply to a girl who asked him if he believed in evolution.  He told her that evolution was a theory that was “out there” and had gaps in it.  He explained that in Texas, they teach evolution and creationism, and assured the girl that she was intelligent enough to decide which is correct.

Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, immediately issued a statement that he believes in evolution, indicating his support for science.  Any number of commentators have dismissed the flap as insignificant or stated that Perry was clever to say what he did because it will go over well among Republicans in Iowa and South Carolina.  But they all miss the real point and that is Perry’s complete disregard for the Constitution, which, if he is elected president, he will be obliged to pledge to protect and defend.

The teaching of creationism is not the teaching of science.  It is the teaching of religion, as any number of courts have held.

Moreover, it is the teaching of one religion, fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity.  As such, this practice in Texas violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution because it violates the separation of church and state by introducing religion into science classes in public schools.  Moreover, the practice excludes the point of view of other religions with regard to creation and the origins of life on the planet earth.  Most Jews believe the Book of Genesis to be entirely metaphorical. After all, does Perry really think that a snake spoke to Eve?   Pope John Paul II enunciated the Catholic position when he asserted that God had chosen evolution as His means of creation.  Hindus and Moslems have different legends regarding creation.  By excluding them, the State of Texas under his governorship establishes only the fundamentalist and evangelical position on creationism.  That is tantamount to establishing one religion in the state, which is taught in the schools and is patently unconstitutional.

Perry’s remarks were insidious and dangerous.  Moreover, his position was clarified in the prayer rally over which he presided in Texas , which excluded all clerics except fundamentalist and evangelical Protestant pastors. There were no Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists, for whom he clearly has no respect.

Creationism and intelligent design are not science.  One is tempted to ask such co-religionists if they think the appendix is

Snake to Eve: Beware of Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems; and for heaven's sake, BLACK PEOPLE!

intelligent.  Perry’s candidacy has pushed America into very dangerous waters by blatantly rejecting the Constitution and pushing science aside in order to pander to superstitious and ignorant people who very easily could determine the fate of the nation.  Whether Perry believes what he says is beside the point.  He might well be completely cynical.  Kurt Vonnegut once observed, “You are what you pretend to be,” which makes Perry a religious bigot and a demagogue capable of turning America into an ignorant and backward country while the rest of the world races ahead of us.  He denigrates the Environmental Protection Agency and denies global warming, even as glaciers melt into the sea and a long, devastating drought haunts his own state of Texas.    Perry’s received his degree  in animal science from Texas A&M, from which he managed to graduate despite an F in organic chemistry.  Perhaps Perry is working out his resentment against his science professors by marginalizing both them and their disciplines, leading the country into a new dark age in order to win the presidency and spite that professor who gave him an F.

Many Americans are afraid of the future, leading some of them to seek absolutes with which they are comfortable.   They find comfort in God and small government and are suckers for the kind of rhetoric Perry employs.  One gets the distinct impression that he is just laughing at everyone, even suggesting that in Texas, they would do violence to Ben Bernanke, warning that “we would treat him pretty ugly in Texas.”  He also suggested that the head of the Federal Reserve might well be guilty of treason, a capital offense.   He has also questioned Obama’s loyalty.    That Bernanke is Jewish and Obama black should give anyone cause for concern.   Perry’s world of white, Protestant fundamentalists, evangelicals and rich Texas donors makes him a formidable candidate but his election would be a catastrophe for America, which would become a post-Enlightenment, regressive society, the very opposite of what Jefferson envisioned.  In short, it would quite simply be the end of America as we have known it and as the Founders believed it should be.

But all of this is really quite moot because what Perry said about the Texas schools was inaccurate.  Texas has rejected biology text books that include creationism.  One wonders what this guy is all about since he has also allowed children of undocumented immigrants to attend Texas schools and  state universities at the same tuition rate as legal Texas residents.  Perhaps all his right wing Christian rhetoric is simply a mask to hide his  true pussycat nature.

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YOUTH OF ISRAEL-FULL OF LIFE

August 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

You get everything, we get nothing? That doesn't work for us.

The youth of Israel are full of life, putting young Americans to shame.  They are protesting the great disparity of wealth under the Netanyahu regime, which has seen stocks of the biggest Israeli companies increase in value by three hundred percent . While incomes of the great majority of Israelis have stagnated and prices from housing to cottage cheese have soared, Israeli youth have created a tent city in the middle of Tel Aviv and are making their voices heard.  One hundred and fifty thousand young Israelis recently demonstrated in Jerusalem, the largest protest in Israel’s history.

Denouncing “vulgar capitalism,” they point to the privatization of major companies, which has put them into the hands of a few wealthy Israelis, as typical of the state of affairs in Israel now.  There are six thousand millionaires and billionaires and, much like America, everyone else is struggling.  Ridiculed by the Israeli Establishment as a bunch of college kids reenacting Woodstock, the protesters are now supported by eighty percent of the population.  In a panic, Netanyahu canceled a scheduled trip to Poland to lobby against the recognition of a Palestinian state, promising change.  Opposition leader, Tzipi Livni, who once called for the privatization of “anything that moved,” has now repented.

On the surface, Netanyahu’s neo-liberal reforms have been successful.  Official unemployment is at five and a half percent, a remarkable figure.  Israel now has a favorable balance of payments, exporting more than it imports, when in the past it relied on foreign contributions to make up for its chronic deficits.  But on the negative side, twenty-four percent of Israelis live below the poverty line, with many living in squalor.  The growing ultra orthodox Jewish population is exacerbating the problem.  The men don’t work and the women, with little education, take low-paying, menial jobs.  They have gigantic families with ill-educated children who attend orthodox schools that have a medieval curriculum.  They also don’t serve in the military.

Because of their growing numbers, the reactionary ultra orthodox have a powerful political presence. They are determined to undermine the Israeli secular society that has created a modern state and oppose negotiations with the Palestinians, alleging a biblical mandate over all of the West Bank.  With Likud pandering to them and the center Kadima reluctant to take them on, the future of Israel is seriously in doubt.  This makes the tent city in Tel Aviv and the demonstrations all the more significant because the young people participating in them are predominantly secular.  They are fed up with what Israel has become.  While few of them wish to return to the socialism of the past, they are disgusted by the disparity of wealth and the arrogance of the rich.  Israel is no longer a family that takes care of its own, as it was intended to be.  Instead, it has become a mirror image of contemporary America, in which a handful of people control ninety percent of the wealth.

At a time when “liberal” is a dirty word in America, young Israelis are calling for an Israeli New Deal to create a more just society.  One can only hope they succeed because only a just Israel is an Israel that can survive and flourish.  It is also the only Israel that can come to terms with the Palestinians instead of living with the illusion of  “Greater Israel.”

But while young Israelis are demonstrating that they have the power to be heard, young Americans remain largely phlegmatic

American protest? Can't you see I'm busy!

and apathetic, even as their options become increasingly limited.  Burdened by college debt, they put their dreams on hold to take any job they can find and keep quiet.  Many of them don’t have health insurance, whereas in Israel everyone is still covered for free, something the reactionaries have not dared to alter.  Young Americans without college degrees can’t find jobs at all and because college tuitions are rising, more are electing not to go. Young blacks are dropping out of high school in large numbers, assuring the creation of a permanent underclass. Latinos are the group suffering most in the American economy as they lose jobs and can’t find others.

What is missing in America is a sense of solidarity.  The phony ideology of the right, promoted largely by cynical, wealthy Americans like the Koch brothers, is hypocritical.  These self-proclaimed conservatives think they can pay down the debt and balance the budget while increasing the defense budget and supporting the wars that have cost thousands of lives and have drained the wealth of the country, contributing mightily to the great budget deficit . The only person on the right who makes sense is Ron Paul, who has called for an end to the wars and the cutting of the defense budget.   A staunch libertarian, he has also called for gradual reforms of entitlements, unlike Paul Ryan, who has called for the privatization of Medicare.

Young Americans need to emulate the youth of Israel.  Youth of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your stupid governments.

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JIMMY CARTER, MICHELE BACHMANN AND THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT

July 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Praise Jesus! And pick me!

When liberals complain about religion entering the political sphere, they forget where it all started. Democrat Jimmy Carter, a “born again” Christian, courted the evangelicals relentlessly.  He would march on stage as a band played a Baptist hymn, as though he were Jesus incarnate.  As he was doing this, he got his friend, Burt Lance, to get his bank to lend his campaign millions of dollars, giving him a leg up on the competition.  The authorities forced Lance out of banking for life, but Carter became president.

Not to be outdone, Ronald Reagan, never particularly religious, was seen praying on the campaign trail, his eyes closed tight, surrounded by a pack of dumb goyim who thought he meant it.  But it was Ralph Reed who became the master of this strategy.  A protégé of Pat Robertson, he turned Christian politics into a lucrative business. Years later, it was Karl Rove who organized the Christians into a potent religious force and had Bush blabbing about his conversion.  It worked and Bush snuck in.

Now the liberals are in a furor over Michele Bachmann, who manages to wear the mantle of the Christian right, which is in its usual snit over gay marriage, while joining the neo-McCarthyist right in denouncing Obama as an anti-American socialist. She has called for an investigation of those in Congress who are, in her words, “un-American.” Her response to the passage of the gay marriage bill in New York State was to announce that she would support a constitutional amendment banning it.  She is also the new darling of the Tea Party, calling for drastic cuts in the budget while keeping the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

What is fascinating about Bachmann is that both she and her husband, a “Christian therapist,” were ardent supporters of Jimmy Carter and worked to get him elected.  Carter was first in redefining the role of government, declaring the old days of “big government” over well before Reagan.  With his ostentatious conservative Christianity, he created the very ideology now prominent on the right.  But when he lost to Reagan, the Bachmanns got the message.  Total opportunists, they became right-wing Christian Republicans.  Not about to spend her life as a tax lawyer for the IRS, she set her sights on much higher goals.  She made her name first in her battles with her local school board, taking extreme right-wing positions.

With her suburban good looks and brilliant white teeth, she has caught the imagination of the Tea Partiers, who see her as a stronger candidate for president that Sarah Palin.  Her poll numbers keep climbing, surpassing those of Tim Pawlenty and catching up to those of Mitt Romney.  Her supporters don’t care about her gaffs saying that the battles of Lexington and Concord took place in New Hampshire, for example, or that Waterloo, Iowa ,was the birthplace of John Wayne. Just one problem: the only famous John Wayne who ever lived in Waterloo was serial killer John Wayne Gacy. It matters not at all to her devoted followers who are increasing in number every day.

Her big advantage is that she is in the trenches, fighting in Congress for the values of the Tea Party and the Christian right, while remaining on

Me, the next President? Thank you, God!

very good terms with the regular GOP leadership.  This makes her unique among the announced Republican candidates.  Because of this, there is a push by powerful Republicans for Rick Perry, the photogenic governor or Texas, to enter the race.  They see in him the new Reagan, with his craggy, movie star good looks and his genial manner.  Never mind that he has run up a gigantic deficit in Texas, a state with the most people without medical insurance. His claim to fame is all the jobs that Texas has created during his three terms as governor, many of which are low paying service industry jobs with no benefits.  It won’t matter.  If he chooses to run, it will be like the second coming.

Unlike Bachmann, Perry can sweet talk America to go further to the right than ever.  But should he win the nomination, his likely choice for vice president will be Michele Bachmann.  There’s a winning ticket for you.  Everyone at the Nation Magazine will pack up and head for Canada.  People on the Upper West Side in New York will be tearing their hair out. You can just imagine the scene in Hollywood. By then, America will be beyond reform.  But it’s great news if you are a revolutionary.  As Lenin said, “the worse it gets, the better it is.”

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Paul Revere – What Sarah Palin Said

June 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

While visiting Paul Revere’s house in Boston, Sarah Palin gave this response when asked what his famous ride was about:

“He who warned the, the British that they weren’t gonna be taking away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells and, um, by making sure that as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free, and we were gonna be armed.”

I do hope that any female presidential hopefuls from Alaska in the centuries hence do get correct their retelling of my patriotic and daring exploits.

Following heated criticism, attacking the historic accuracy of her statement, she responded:

“You know what, I didn’t mess up about Paul Revere. Here’s what Paul Revere did, he warned the Americans that the British were coming, the British were coming, and they were going to try to take our arms away and we gotta make sure that we were protecting ourselves and shoring up all our ammunitions and our firearms so that they couldn’t take them, but remember that the British had already been there.”

So what actually happened?

On April 14, 1775, General Gage received instructions from Secretary of State William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, to disarm the rebels, who were known to have hidden weapons in Concord, among other locations, and to imprison the rebellion’s leaders, especially Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Dartmouth gave Gage considerable discretion in his commands. Gage issued orders to Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith to proceed from Boston “with utmost expedition and secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and destroy… all Military stores… But you will take care that the soldiers do not plunder the inhabitants or hurt private property.” Gage did not issue written orders for the arrest of rebel leaders, as he feared doing so might spark an uprising.

Between 9 and 10 pm on the night of April 18, 1775, Joseph Warren told Revere and William Dawes that the king’s troops were about to embark in boats from Boston bound for Cambridge and the road to Lexington and Concord. Warren’s intelligence suggested that the most likely objectives of the regulars’ movements later that night would be the capture of Adams and Hancock. They did not worry about the possibility of regulars marching to Concord, since the supplies at Concord were safe, but they did think their leaders in Lexington were unaware of the potential danger that night. Revere and Dawes were sent out to warn them and to alert colonial militias in nearby towns.

In the days before April 18, Revere had instructed Robert Newman, the sexton of the Old North Church, to send a signal by lantern to alert colonists in Charlestown as to the movements of the troops when the information became known. In what is well known today by the phrase “one if by land, two if by sea”, one lantern in the steeple would signal the army’s choice of the land route, while two lanterns would signal the route “by water” across the Charles River. Revere first gave instructions to send the signal to Charlestown. He then crossed the Charles River by rowboat, slipping past the British warship HMS Somerset at anchor. Crossings were banned at that hour but Revere safely landed in Charlestown and rode to Lexington, avoiding a British patrol and later warning almost every house along the route. The Charlestown colonists dispatched additional riders to the north.

History, schmistery.

Riding through present-day Somerville, Medford, and Arlington, Revere warned patriots along his route — many of whom set out on horseback to deliver warnings of their own. By the end of the night there were probably as many as 40 riders throughout Middlesex County carrying the news of the army’s advance. Revere did not shout the phrase later attributed to him (“The British are coming!”), largely because the mission depended on secrecy and the countryside was filled with British army patrols and because the colonists themselves were British. Revere’s warning, according to eyewitness accounts of the ride and Revere’s own descriptions, was “The Regulars are coming out.” Revere arrived in Lexington around midnight, with Dawes arriving about a half hour later. They met with Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were spending the night with Hancock’s relatives (in what is now called the Hancock-Clarke House), and they spent a great deal of time discussing plans of action upon receiving the news. They believed that the forces leaving the city were too large for the sole task of arresting two men and that Concord was the main target. The Lexington men dispatched riders to the surrounding towns, and Revere and Dawes continued along the road to Concord accompanied by Samuel Prescott, a doctor who happened to be in Lexington “returning from a lady friend’s house at the awkward hour of 1 a.m.”

Revere, Dawes, and Prescott were detained by a British Army patrol in Lincoln at a roadblock on the way to Concord. Prescott jumped his horse over a wall and escaped into the woods; he eventually reached Concord. Dawes also escaped, though he fell off his horse not long after and did not complete the ride.

Revere was questioned by the British officers and told them of the army’s movement from Boston and that British army troops might be in some danger if they approached Lexington because of the large number of hostile militia gathered there. He and other captives taken by the patrol were then escorted east toward Lexington until the sound of musket fire from the town center alarmed the patrolmen. Revere explained to them that it was probably an arriving militia company that had fired a volley upon its arrival. The sound was followed not long after by the pealing of the town bell. The British confiscated Revere’s horse and rode off to warn the approaching army column. Revere was horseless and walked through a cemetery and pastures until he came to Rev. Clarke’s house where Hancock and Adams were staying. As the battle on Lexington Green continued, Revere helped John Hancock and his family escape from Lexington with their possessions, including a trunk of Hancock’s papers.

Palin got some things right.  At one point Revere did warn the British when they detained him that they would be in some danger should they press on to Lexington because there was a large armed militia waiting for them.

And there were bells pealing at Lexington.  What Revere did not say to the British was that they would not be able to take away the Americans’ arms or anything else of the sort. Certainly he did not warn “the British that they weren’t gonna be taking away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells and, um, by making sure that as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free, and we were gonna be armed.”  Revere never rang any bells, nor did he tell anyone to fire warning shots.

What one should take from this is that Palin is incapable of speaking a coherent sentence in the English language and that her knowledge of American history is quite limited.  Where this all came from is anyone’s guess.   One can only look forward to her possible presidential candidacy with great anticipation as she elucidates the problems facing the country and what is to be done about them.  Perhaps she can even blather all the way to the White House.

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CARSTENS V. LAGARDE

June 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Zut alors, pick me!

With French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde campaigning all over the world for the position of Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund and offering affirmative action high-level positions to the BRICS countries, Mexico’s Agustin Carstens, who heads Mexico’s Central Bank, has offered himself as the candidate of the non-European bloc that has long chafed at the unspoken deal from Bretton Woods days that the head of the Fund would be a European (most often French) while the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, commonly referred to as the World Bank, would be headed by an American.

On the surface, it would seem to be a no-brainer, Carstens hands-down.  First, unlike Lagarde, he is a true economist. He holds an M.A. (1983) and a Ph.D. (1985) in economics from the University of Chicago. He received his B.A. in economics (summa cum laude) from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) in 1982, with a thesis on determining the forward exchange rate in Mexico, for which he received the 1983 Tlacaelel National Prize in Economic Consulting from Consultores Internacionales, S.C., and the 1983 National Research Prize in Economics from Banco Nacional de México, S.A. ITAM is the most prestigious private university in Mexico and is also a high-powered economics think tank.  His entire career has been in banking and finance.  He also served as a Deputy Director of the Fund representing the interests of Mexico, Spain and Latin America

Lagarde, who attended the elite Holton Arms girl’s prep school in Maryland, is a lawyer.  She received her law degree from Nanterre, (Paris X) which gained fame in the Sixties as a hot bed of radicalism, and obtained a Master’s Degree in political science from the Institut d’études politiques d’Aix-en-Provence. Somehow, she became an assistant to William Cohen in his Congressional office.  Cohen would go on to become Secretary of Defense.  For six years, she headed the international law firm of Baker McKenzie from its Chicago headquarters.  Before becoming Minister of Finance, she served as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.  She was also once a member of the French synchronized swimming team.  In short, she really is a politician, with a slim figure and a stunning head of short grey hair.  Although she is French, she doesn’t drink wine or any alcohol and is a vegetarian.

But the problem is that Carstens is viewed as the Establishment figure, a proponent of the University of Chicago neo-liberalism that the Fund, in the past, and very much under the leadership of the so-called Socialist, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has employed in imposing draconian measures on less developed countries seeking access to the Fund’s resources.  He is also grossly fat and looks like a heart attack waiting to happen.

So maybe the best choice is the politician Lagrande, who is likely to consider the concerns of the rest of the world rather than just Western Europe and America in formulating the Fund’s policies.  The harsh doctrine of “conditionality” that has been the Fund’s modus vivendi–devastating the economies of any number of developing nations while clearly in violation of the Fund’s own charter–would be continued under Carstens without regard for his constituency.  As director, he would maintain the status quo that has given the Fund a bad name in important parts of the world.

The choice is between symbolism and the need for change.  A Carstens victory would symbolize the shift of power away from Europe to the emerging market countries whose economies are growing while Europe, except Germany, stagnates. A Lagrande victory would undoubtedly give a serious voice to the countries Carstens claims to represent but would inevitably ignore .  This is precisely why the odds increasingly favor Lagrande; it is exactly her political skills that the Fund needs most.  Besides, as she has repeatedly pointed out, she would be the first woman to head the Fund, bringing a new perspective to what has been an old boys club since its founding.

Every choice is fraught with danger.  She will be replacing a Frenchman accused of serious crimes involving aggressive sexual conduct.He has resigned his post as he waits to go on trial in New York, where he faces the possibility of a long jail sentence. Perhaps the best solution would be to elect her to finish DSK’s term and if everyone is satisfied, she could be elected again to her own full term.  After the way DSK has disgraced the Fund as well as himself, she is the right person to give the Fund the fumigation it so desperately needs.

s has never been posted.

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