Month: September 2007

The loss of a beloved pet can create the most heartrending crisis in our lives. Such creatures bestow a sense of security and unconditional love so often not provided by the people around us. Sadly, their spans are shorter than our own and bereavement is inevitable, requiring a period of grief and mourning necessary to repair the vacuum left in our hearts.

It would appear George Bush’s official mourning for the loss of his pet poodle, Tony Blair, – last seen slipping his leash and heading gleefully for the Eastern horizon – has been helped into closure by the introduction into White House hearts of yet another poodle, this time of the French variety.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the latest president of France, has made it clear he will not be following his predecessor’s doctrine of US-criticism, having already declared America, “…..the world’s greatest democracy……”, a rather strange utterance from a man newly elected president of his own democratic country; one many would consider vastly superior to the USA, if the meaning of ‘democracy’ is to be taken seriously.

No holiday on the French Riviera for Nicolas, he was off to gallivant around New England, taking time out to call in on the Bush’s for crepe-suzette and beefburgers. The grin on George Bush’s countenance was a joy to behold after months of tears and regret over Tony.

It does, however, raise the question: will Nicolas prove as true and faithful to his master as the near irreplaceable Mister Blair? First impressions are positive. Only this week, in an obvious show of unity with Washington, the left-leaning Bernard Kouchner – Sarkozy’s unlikely choice for French foreign minister – declared France’s support for war against Iran if that country failed to quell its nuclear ambitions. A somewhat inexplicable stance given the IAEA has only recently commented on the high degree of cooperation it is receiving from the Iranian authorities.

Indeed, today in Austria at the Authority’s 51st General Conference, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei stated that:

* The Agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran;

* Iran has provided the Agency with additional information and access needed to resolve a number of long outstanding issues, such as the scope and nature of past plutonium experiments;

* Contrary to the decisions of the Security Council, calling on Iran to take certain confidence-building measures, Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities, and is continuing with its construction of the heavy water reactor at Arak – “this is regrettable”, he commented; and

* While the Agency so far has been unable to verify certain important aspects relevant to the scope and nature of Iran´s nuclear programme, Iran and the Secretariat agreed last month on a work plan for resolving all outstanding verification issues.”

Quite obviously progress is being made, but as with Iraq it seems ‘progress’ is insufficient to keep the Dogs of War from baying for blood.

George Bush’s satisfaction at the replacement of his old pet with a new one showing similar characteristics may be short-lived. While Sarkozy is Jewish through and through, with obvious leanings towards Israel and an antipathy towards any who might castigate that nation, Kouchner, while Jewish on his father’s side, is basically a humanitarian. It was he who founded Medecin Sans Frontieres and has worked as a relief doctor in countries many charity workers have baulked at entering. When Bernard Kouchner shouts about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he is more likely condemning its – at least, to Western eyes – authoritarian regime.

For many years, Jacques Chirac kept France on the sidelines of international politics, though his ability to stir up trouble within the European Parliament was legendary. It took the US threat of an Iraq invasion to catapult Chirac into an offensive stance against the UK/US position, and most French people backed him solidly. Many remembered sufficient of the Nazi occupation of France between 1940 and 1944 to consider any such act permissible in only the most dire of circumstances.

Sarkozy is no Chirac. He wishes to make a name for himself on the world stage and will use America and its president to achieve it. Unlike Tony Blair, who was faithful to the last, if his flirtation with George Bush fails in its objectives, the new French poodle may well turn against his new found master, and George Bush will likely feel “Oua Oua” Sarkozy’s teeth upon his butt.

Filed under: Donnez le chien un os

My God! It’s so convenient, isn’t it? Take a fledgling nation occupied by people from all corners of the world, give them a persecution complex that allows them to get away with similar mass murder as they themselves once suffered, and call it – Israel. Then, dare to complain about their treatment of the neighbors.

What will they call you? An Anti-Semite!

This writer is not an anti-Semite. In fact, he’s not an anti-anything, provided that is the “anything” is contained within personal belief and not thrust down the throats of those not wishing to hear it, or used as a stick to beat those with dissimilar views. Unfortunately, members of the so-called “Jewish lobby”, a group determined to keep America firmly allied to Israel, despite the latter’s almost Nazi-like persecution of those whose land it usurped, are only too ready and willing to smear the good name of anyone daring to criticize Jewish Israeli practices, and the readiness of America to cuddle up in what is obviously a violation of all that is humane and reasonable.

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, two eminent US scholars, have recently found themselves the subjects of just such a smear. Even US presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, was quick to join the attack.

Last year, the two academics wrote a London Review of Books essay on the Israel Lobby. They were castigated by the Washington Post, who described their work as anti-Semitic; by William Kristol, who called it “anti-Judaism”, while the New York Sun compared them to the white supremacist, David Duke. All of which simply serves as an example of the depths of depravity plumbed by US commentators and journalists.

Mearsheimer and Walt have now expanded their essay into a book. Once again, their reputations are being dragged over the coals by a pro-Jewish gutter press hell-bent on stamping out any criticism of Israel, even when the analysis is fair, balanced, and obvious to all not constrained by the blinkers of imposed Semitic disapproval.

It really is time to bury the Holocaust, particularly its use as an excuse to perpetrate crimes against humanity. Mearsheimer and Walt have had the courage to stand up and criticize a deplorable section of the Washington powerbase deliberately using its influence with the American government to foster its own self-centered ends in the Middle East, while utilizing methods to subjugate its neighbors that have long been condemned by the United Nations.

If daring to criticize Israeli inhumanity is anti-Semitic, then Sparrow Chat is proud to be called Anti-Semitic. In fact, the Israel lobby is using the fear and psycho-blackmail of anti-semitism to further its nefarious ends. The term “anti-Semitic” has, thanks to the Israeli lobby, become synonymous with Nazism and Fascism. In its base form it undoubtedly is, but some members of the Jewish community have pushed the phrase a step further, utilizing it to cover any criticism of Jewish/Israeli policies; conjuring a slur that stifles honest debate. It is impossible to assume this a less than deliberate, connived, device.

Mearsheimer and Walt have taken a courageous step by publishing their book. Sparrow Chat is happy to support them. It is hoped that at least some Americans will do the same.

Guardian report on Mearsheimer and Walt available HERE.

Filed under: False premises

Don’t you just love “company towns”? I live in one. It’s an education. Such things don’t exist in the UK. Try to get anything done here that is against the interests of the “Company”, and you may as well splatter your brains against the proverbial brick wall.

In my case the company is ADM. The Archer Daniel Midland Corporation.

They’re in corn, don’t ya know?

They own everyone in authority in this town; the police chief, the Mayor, the education committees – everyone. I’ve given up writing to the mayor on local issues. He doesn’t even bother to reply. He doesn’t have to. He’s not appointed by the townsfolk, he’s “voted” in by ADM.

ADM owns every farmer within two hundred miles, one way or another. Right now, ADM’s main concern is bio-fuel. Farmers around here are jumping for joy, wringing their hands with delight as ADM promises them profits like they’ve never known, just for growing the crop they’ve always grown for ADM – corn. To hell that the price is going through the roof. Who cares if the cost of every food commodity triples overnight due to shortages of corn on world markets? The farmers and ADM are making big bucks – and who gives a tinker’s cuss for anyone else?

Today, while driving home a bus-load of hyperactive kids, I’m stuck at a railroad crossing for fifteen minutes while a mile-long train full of chemicals for ADM shunts and grunts its way mind-bogglingly slowly across the main town thoroughfare and into ADM’s extensive railroad yard. The whole town grinds to a halt while ADM is serviced.

Does anyone complain? Not on your life! Whats the point? Who’ll listen? ADM? Do me a favor!

The stench from this bastion of company debasedness assails nostrils throughout the town. The fall-out from its ethylene products is reported to take the paint off cars. Is there any control? Yes, of course there is, by ADM, or others under – shall we say – their control?

Of course, the townspeople are up in arms, aren’t they? They live their lives under the stench and pollution from the “company” factories. Their cars are the ones ruined by the fall-out. Their lives are rendered poorer by the invasion of the “company”.

No, they don’t complain.

In the forward to Kurt Eichenwald’s book, “The Informant”, a true tale of the alleged double-dealings of ADM, is the folowing passage:

“……a pungent aroma hung in the air. Newcomers to town usually found the smell disagreeable. But for Decatur residents, the ever-present odor produced by drying corn feed and toasting soymeal at the powerful Archer Daniels Midland Company had become part of the landscape, no different than the trees or the sky. Locals often joked it was just the smell of money being made…..”

“Just the smell of money being made……..”

These days it’s more than drying corn feed and toasting soymeal. The residents still don’t complain. It’s almost as though they’re proud to be a small part of the fortune amassed by the Andreas family who, until recently, owned ADM. Never mind that it’s their lives that were made poorer by the demands of “the company”; never mind that the Andreas family grew mind-bogglingly wealthy by devastating the environment of its workers.

Hell, this is a “company town” – and we’re proud of it!

Filed under: God loves capitalism