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Monday, December 14, 2009

THE OBSCENITY IN OBAMA'S NOBEL ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

There is no quote that is more fitting to describe Obama's Nobel speech than the following:

What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy"-George Orwell

In his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, the following is what Barack Obama cherry picked from Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s Nobel Prize acceptance speech:

"Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones."

The following is the full context of what Reverend King actually said in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech:

"I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers."

Martin Luther King's descriptions of the effects of violence are borne out in every respect. There is no question about the fact that the United States is engaged in the slaughter of innocents-- in its shock and awe massive bombardment with depleted uranium coated bombs, in its torture of prisoners, in its creation of torture sites around the world, in its killing of more than a million Iraqi and Afghan civilians, in its destruction of the infrastructure of these nations and in its support of Zionist led Israel's murderous assault on the Gaza sector of Palestine.

The fact that the brutality of United States' actions "creates bitterness in the survivors" in Iraq and Afghanistan and in Palestine makes King's assessment an accurate description of the reality compared to Obama's pontifications.

On the other hand, Barack Obama, after quoting King without its context, digs deep into the well of rationalizations and then justifies and compares this current use of violence against Iraq and Afghanistan by the United States by comparing it with the violence the United States used to defeat the nazi led government of Germany more than 60 years ago. Obama was forgetting, of course, that the United States used a racially segregated army created out of some four hundred brutal years of concerted racism in the United States to defeat an anachronistic decade old fascism of nazi-led Germany---an effort, by the way, that has served to smother into obscurity the enormous death dealing racism, slavery and colonialism in 400 years of United States history.

In contrast, this is what Reverend King said in opposition to the United States invasion of Vietnam some forty years ago:

“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent. . . . As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission -- a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for “the brotherhood of man.” This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances . . . [for] we are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.”

For Obama to make reference to Reverend King in the midst of his rationalization for the United States' current slaughter of innocents can only be regarded as an obscenity --- a tunnel-visioned examination of violence wearing the rose colored glasses of the sycophant.

Labels: colonialism, invasion, nobel Prize, Obama, occupation, racism

- posted by william @ 2:53 PM

Friday, July 03, 2009

ISRAEL IS A RACIST COLONIZING STATE
THE UNMENTIONABLE IN HAJO MEYER’S INTERVIEW

William C. Carlotti, July 1, 2009, latest July 3, 2009

It was with considerable interest that I read the interview with Hajo Meyer and, of course, his personal experiences with the Nazi led government of Germany, the Nazi led occupation of the Netherlands, and his experiences in Auschwitz are important. See HAJO MEYER-Auschwitz survivor

At the same time, however, these same experiences serve to focus his historical perspective. So, when he encounters the activities of the Jewish Zionist led, Christian Zionist supported Israeli government that have similarities to his experiences in each of these Nazi created environments he makes what he considers to be valid, based on his experiences, comparisons.

According to the interview, Mr. Meyer makes the comparison that coincides with his experience:

“I can write up an endless list of similarities between Nazi Germany and Israel. The capturing of land and property, denying people access to educational opportunities and restricting access to earn a living to destroy their hope, all with the aim to chase people away from their land. And what I personally find more appalling then dirtying one's hands by killing people, is creating circumstances where people start to kill each other. Then the distinction between victims and perpetrators becomes faint. By sowing discord in a situation where there is no unity, by enlarging the gap between people -- like Israel is doing in Gaza.”

“Of course it is positive that parts of the Jewish population of Israel try to see Palestinians as human beings and as their equals. However, it disturbs me how paper-thin the number is that protests and is truly anti-Zionist. We get worked up by what happened in Hitler's Germany. If you expressed only the slightest hint of criticism at that time, you ended up in the Dachau concentration camp. If you expressed criticism, you were dead. Jews in Israel have democratic rights. They can protest in the streets, but they don't.”

This last, “Jews in Israel have democratic rights. They can protest in the streets, but they don't.” is a clear distinction between what went on in the brief period—approximately two decades---in the environments created by the Nazi led, fascist led German, Italian, Spanish governments that so much of our history of brutalizing, murderous regimes has focused on and what is going on in the current Zionist led Israeli government created environment.

It is a critical distinction.

This critical distinction between the Zionist led Israeli government’s created environment and the Nazi led German government’s created environment makes the totality of the comparison demonstrably invalid even though elements deserve comparison.

What is Zionist led Israel doing and what historical comparison would be more valid than the comparison to Nazi led Germany’s created environment?

First, the Jewish Zionist led Israeli government is bombing, strafing, shooting the people of Palestine using cluster bombs, depleted uranium coated bombs and shells, white phosphorous bombs fired from F-16 supersonic jet planes, from helicopter gunships, from remote operated, unmanned drone airplanes and from huge Abrams tanks; using behemoth bulldozers supplied by Caterpillar to demolish more than a thousand Palestinian homes and eradicate hundreds of whole villages and towns; crush thousands of hectares of decades old olive and orange orchids; they fly their supersonic jets low over the Palestinian population and break the sound barrier to create the sonic boom that has deafened hundreds of vulnerable Palestinian children; they are building ghetto style armed Jewish settlements all over the territory of Palestine; they restrict the water, the electricity, the medical care, the sewage, the education, the employment, the travel, the communications and every facet of the lives of the people of Palestine; they make targeted assassinations of the selected and elected representatives chosen by the people of Palestine killing dozens of other people in the process; they have confiscated court, land and title records that confirm the property rights of the people of Palestine; they are building a wall to recreate their beloved ghetto existence armed to the teeth with nuclear bombs and chemical and biological weapons: they have driven millions of the people of Palestine off of the land of their forebears, they hold thousands of Palestinians, not only men. but also women and children in prison many of whom are tortured.

In the meantime, the Israeli economy is nominally flourishing, the Israeli government, its administration, its Knesset, its courts, its Supreme Court, its army, navy. air force, its clandestine intelligence, its regularly held elections, its colleges, universities, religious institutions, its factories, schools, water electricity, transportation, farming, international trade are all functioning.

As Mr. Meyer says: “Jews in Israel have democratic rights. They can protest in the streets but they don’t.”

The question is then, What is the appropriate historical comparison for the Jewish Zionist led created environment?

Israel is a racist, colonizing country.

It is a racist colonizing country just like the democratic French government as the racist colonizer of Viet Nam (remember Dienbienphu) and Algeria that Franz Fanon wrote about; just like the democratic government of Italy as the racist colonizer of Ethiopia and Libya; just like the democratic government of the Netherlands as the racist colonizer of the East Indies: just like the democratic government of Belgium as the racist colonizer of the Congo (remember King Leopold); just like the democratic government of Germany as the racist colonizer of East Africa; just like the democratic government of England as the racist colonizer of India (remember Ghandi) , Rhodesia and South Africa; just like the democratic government of Australia as the racist colonizer of its indigenous people and in its completed genocide of Tasmania; just like the democratic government of the United States as the racist, genocidal colonizer of its indigenous population and the African slave trade.

In each of these countries its citizens had the same democratic rights as those that Mr. Meyer describes for the Jews in Israel. In fact, it seems that one of the principal characteristics of these democratic countries during the last several centuries (not two decades) has been their racist colonizing. And in each of these countries the opposition to the racist colonizing has been ”paper thin”.

And, in fact, it remains so.

The United States, with its unspeakable history of racist colonizing, refused to send representatives to the United Nation World Conference On Racism. France, Italy, Belgium, Australia, and England, each with its own unspeakable history of racist colonizing, formed a coalition of racist colonizers to walk out of the conference in opposition to the Conference’s condemnation of Zionist led Israel’s racist colonizing.

In fact, the racist colonizers in the European Union have invited Zionist led Israel’s racist colonizing government to join the European Union.

So, if we are going to make historical comparisons we ought to get it straight---ISRAEL IS A RACIST COLONIZING STATE—without the kind of caveat-like exception that Mr. Meyer’s experiences compel him to make and that serve the purposes of Zionist exceptions.

Labels: colonizing, Israel, Palestine, racism, racist states, resistance

- posted by william @ 3:53 PM