HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY (DELAYED)!
Poor Obama, from happy Fourth to meeting with Bibi. Beware, Barack, he is lying in his teeth whenever he breathes.
LAST BLOG FOR A FEW WEEKS: We are going of to Canada on Sunday to spend some time with Hadass, David and kids at Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba
ON TO THE RANTS
I have promised to let more effective ranters shout about the local scene, but I am not sure I can stick with that. In any case, let us start with some worldwide crimes, such as China in Xinjiang.
IN RUSSIA, WHICH IS SUPPOSED TO BE DEMOCRATIC NOW we have a serious case of denial of freedom of expression. Organizers of an art exhibition are being prosecuted for being critical of the religious establishment. Please click on this link and act upon it.
Some people tell me that ranting about human rights violations around the world somehow dilutes and weakens our case against the Occupation and repression of the Palestinians. I am somewhat stupid and have never understood how one atrocity justifies another. It is like Begin's old argument that the Holocaust somehow exempts Israel from International Humanitarian Law.
In this context, I would like to share an interview with Michael Moore
the Oscar-winning filmmaker.
He makes a valid point that being a citizen of a democracy entails activism. If there is no activism, there is no democracy, as said long ago in different words by Tom Paine.
LABOR NEWS
Coca Cola which is unionized in the First World does its best to bust unions in the Third World. Please click and act on this call for urgent action. Coca Cola itself is IMHO a poison, but it is legal and people drink it. I recall that a kindergarten teacher in Winnipeg used it effectively to dissolve tar graffiti that vandals has smeared on the signs and walls.
Labor unions are also having a hard time in Iran. An activist was just released
but many more remain in custody and the repression is very heavy.
AIDS is a terrible scourge and it is horrible that victims are turned away from clinics in Uganda because of lack of resources. Why is there always money to fight wars and never enough for people?
NOW FOR THE LOCAL GOODIES.
We know that there are a lot of fascist nuts in our country, but they usually do not get endorsements from the Ministry of Justice. and have their events sponsored by the JNF. I recall my father with the little blue boxes that he took all over Northern Minnesota, in the naive belief that this organization was doing something for the good of the Jewish people. Maybe then it was, but today it is just another force of evil in the arsenal of Israeli colonialism
.
Politics has again reared its ugly head in the appointments process at a university, this time at Ben Gurion University. Richard Silverstein brings it up rightly, but we all know that this is nothing new. At every institution people with left-wing views have been held up in promotion, be it Communist professors at the Technion or leftist activist writers at Hebrew University (vid. the autobiography of the late Baruch Kimmerling/, published in Hebrew after his death, Marginal in the Center). These events are part of the general rise of the right and the slide to fascism that is going on. I had a letter published in Haaretz last Friday that I will share with my Hebrew reader friends.
I complained about their non reaction to my idea of publishing it as an op-ed. They published it in toto and I owe someone an apology.
The Gilad Shalit march goes on and while I have full sympathy with the family and with him, I think that we are getting a charade. We need to release as many prisoners as needed to get him home since it is the fault of the army that he fell prisoner in the first place. Gideon Levy has it right, but to handle this properly would require the quality of leadership that Israel does not have. We seem to be driven by a compulsion to play into the hands of Hamas.
I promised to yield to real ranters and here is Bradley Burston again to say things best. He is right on. I would, however, like to share my Schadenfreude with you as we see that the poor baby war criminal has to
stay home instead of going off to study something in Britain. In general, one should feel sorry for all the Udi's and Uri's who spend their lives trampling on human beings and then are told they have to go to work. I suggest that we build a retirement village for them with computers so that they can all write their memoirs and bitch at the world together and separately. I wonder if the Dutch government would let us build it as a suburb of The Hague so that they can be easily brought to the ICC...
Then we have those among them who walk the Road to Damascus and become peace proponents in their dotage. They ring very false to me. Maybe they did not get a cut in to politics or a cool job at the Ministry of Defense or maybe I am just mean and nasty.
We send our sons and daughters to the Army where the values we tried to imbue in them at home are undermined and subverted by a culture of evil and sadism. Here is a story to make you cringe.
Burning with cigarettes, cutting with a pocket knife, torturing for fun--great Zionist values are imparted to our children. The good news is that these bums smoke which gives hope of lung cancer and heart disease and the sooner the better. We are told that the Army is "investigating" yeah, sure...
Even Below the Beltway is
a bit sad this week as we see another legend of our past get trashed, this time literally.
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