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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

What most of Britain’s daily’s and periodicals have failed to highlight, at least so far, about the recent visit to 10, Downing Street, London, of Mrs Margaret Thatcher, to take tea with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is the epitome of 21st century British politics this act represents.

   

Photo: courtesy “The Guardian”

Thatcher, the “Iron Lady” of Tory party policies hobnobbing with Brown, the “Iron Chancellor” of Blair’s “Socialist” government, focuses nicely on the fact that neither Labour nor Tory party policies represent any significant differences at all. Gone are the days when socialist Labour was the party of the working people, financed by union contributions and determined to fight tooth and nail for the rights of the common man.

Britain has the Blair years to thank for the Labour party’s steady swing away from the left-wing of UK politics and well towards the right. Ironically, it was Blair’s close association with the ultra right-wing George Bush that helped push his party virtually into the laps of those Tories manning the British Parliament’s opposition front benches.

In Britain today, no matter which party holds the reigns of power, it is the rights of the corporate bosses, the bankers, and the stockbrokers that are honed and polished, while the people who handed their politicians the lofty positions they hold are left to scoop up crumbs.

Ten years ago, the idea of two opposing party leaders taking tea together would have been derided in Britain.

Times change; though not always for the better.

Filed under: No democracy