Saturday 2 December 2017

Israel is at the Centre of the Flynn-Kushner Affair!

3 in bed_edited-1.jpg
Reported by Gilad Atzmon
The NY Times reports this evening that
“Mr. Flynn has also admitted lying to the F.B.I. about asking Russia and several other countries for help in thwarting an Obama administration foreign policy decision to permit the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution condemning Israel for building settlements in Palestinian territory. Russia nevertheless declined to delay or veto the measure, which the Security Council passed despite lobbying by Israel and the objections from the Trump transition team.
Some commentators have raised the question of whether such efforts by Mr. Flynn and the Trump transition team to lobby foreign governments in ways that conflicted with the official policy of the United States under the Obama administration before they took power were a violation of the Logan Act. That is a 1799 law that bars private citizens from interfering with diplomatic relations between the United States and foreign governments. But this statute has raised constitutional concerns and is generally considered a dead letter, meaning it remains on the books but is defunct.”
The Israeli press also admits the Israeli involvement. It points at Jared Kushner direct responsibility.
“Kushner was mentioned as having collaborated with Flynn last December to influence Russia and other UN Security Council members)  to cancel/postpone  the UN vote on condemning Israel, contrary to the Obama administration’s policy…Special Prosecutor Mueller found that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu asked Trump’s transition team to persuade other countries to support Israel in the Security Council, and that Flynn and Kushner played a key role in these efforts. The New York Times reported that Mueller obtained documents indicating that Flynn said he would act to prevent the vote.”
I guess that the moral here is clear. If you go to bed with Kushners expect to wake up with Flynns

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Is Trump a Fascist?

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Dec. 01, 2017
Jared Kushner told Michael Flynn to call Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak to advance the interests of Israel, not Russia, according to a new report from Buzzfeed.
From Buzzfeed:
WASHINGTON — Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, called Michael Flynn in December 2016 and told him to call members of the UN Security Council in an effort to stop a vote on a resolution critical of Israeli settlement policy, according to a person who was present in the room when Flynn took the call.
Flynn then called Russia’s then-ambassador to the United States to seek his assistance, and later lied to the FBI about having done so, according to documents filed in federal court Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller that explained Flynn’s guilty plea on two counts of lying to federal agents.
The documents do not say on whose behalf Flynn contacted Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, identifying the person only as “a very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team.”
But a Trump transition official who was in the room where Flynn took a call regarding the upcoming UN Security Council vote said Flynn identified the caller as Kushner.
“Jared called Flynn and told him you need to get on the phone to every member of the Security Council and tell them to delay the vote,” the person said.
If confirmed, that call would bring prosecutors one step closer to Kushner, who also serves as a senior adviser to Trump.
Kushner, the source said, told Flynn during the phone call that “this was a top priority for the president.”
The source says Flynn took the call at the Trump transition team’s offices in the General Services Administration headquarters in northwest Washington. After hanging up, Flynn told the entire room that they’d have to start pushing to lobby against the UN vote, saying “the president wants this done ASAP.”
The Obama administration let the UN vote condemning Israeli settlements go through unimpeded.
Nothing Kushner has ever done has been successful.
The Guardian has more:
One reason that conversation is important – and potentially highly problematic for Trump and his inner circle – is because of comments made to CNN on 23 December the day after Flynn spoke to Kislyak – by an anonymous Israeli official.
That official admitted that Israel – and reportedly the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, himself – had contacted Trump to seek his assistance in killing the resolution.
The official – in comments that may come back to haunt the White House – said that Israel had “implored the [Obama] White House not to go ahead and told them that if they did, we would have no choice but to reach out to President-elect Trump”.
“We did reach out to the president-elect,” the official added, “and are deeply appreciative that he weighed in, which was not a simple thing to do.”
Trump himself not only spoke out to condemn the resolution ahead of the vote – highly unusual for a president-elect – but his incoming national security adviser Flynn was also lobbying Moscow to act against then US foreign policy.
While the timeline remains circumstantial, it is highly suggestive. At a time when Israel was asking the Trump transition team to intervene to derail the resolution, the question is whether Flynn would have approached Kislyak on his own initiative.
Flynn’s own answer to that question – in his guilty plea – is now on the record, alleging that a senior member of the Trump transition team “directed” him to make contact with Russian officials in December 2016.
And while the identity of that “senior transition official” has not been revealed there have been hints, not least the Wall Street Journal’s report last month that special counsel Robert Mueller has been investigating the attempt by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to block the passage of the resolution 2334 – the same effort that Flynn, it now appears, lied to the FBI about.
We can be certain no one in the US media will demand a thorough investigation into collusion between US officials and Israel. Currently, 51 Senators — from both parties — are signed on to a bill which would make boycotting the state of Israel a criminal offense, First Amendment be damned.
Buzzfeed in their own piece suggested these revelations could only “potentially be relevant to Mueller’s investigation into allegations of collusion between Russian officials and Trump campaign staffers.”

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Jared Kushner told Michael Flynn to call Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak to advance the interests of israel, not Russia

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Dec. 01, 2017
Jared Kushner told Michael Flynn to call Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak to advance the interests of Israel, not Russia, according to a new report from Buzzfeed.
From Buzzfeed:
WASHINGTON — Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, called Michael Flynn in December 2016 and told him to call members of the UN Security Council in an effort to stop a vote on a resolution critical of Israeli settlement policy, according to a person who was present in the room when Flynn took the call.
Flynn then called Russia’s then-ambassador to the United States to seek his assistance, and later lied to the FBI about having done so, according to documents filed in federal court Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller that explained Flynn’s guilty plea on two counts of lying to federal agents.
The documents do not say on whose behalf Flynn contacted Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, identifying the person only as “a very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team.”
But a Trump transition official who was in the room where Flynn took a call regarding the upcoming UN Security Council vote said Flynn identified the caller as Kushner.
“Jared called Flynn and told him you need to get on the phone to every member of the Security Council and tell them to delay the vote,” the person said.
If confirmed, that call would bring prosecutors one step closer to Kushner, who also serves as a senior adviser to Trump.
Kushner, the source said, told Flynn during the phone call that “this was a top priority for the president.”
The source says Flynn took the call at the Trump transition team’s offices in the General Services Administration headquarters in northwest Washington. After hanging up, Flynn told the entire room that they’d have to start pushing to lobby against the UN vote, saying “the president wants this done ASAP.”
The Obama administration let the UN vote condemning Israeli settlements go through unimpeded.
Nothing Kushner has ever done has been successful.
The Guardian has more:
One reason that conversation is important – and potentially highly problematic for Trump and his inner circle – is because of comments made to CNN on 23 December the day after Flynn spoke to Kislyak – by an anonymous Israeli official.
That official admitted that Israel – and reportedly the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, himself – had contacted Trump to seek his assistance in killing the resolution.
The official – in comments that may come back to haunt the White House – said that Israel had “implored the [Obama] White House not to go ahead and told them that if they did, we would have no choice but to reach out to President-elect Trump”.
“We did reach out to the president-elect,” the official added, “and are deeply appreciative that he weighed in, which was not a simple thing to do.”
Trump himself not only spoke out to condemn the resolution ahead of the vote – highly unusual for a president-elect – but his incoming national security adviser Flynn was also lobbying Moscow to act against then US foreign policy.
While the timeline remains circumstantial, it is highly suggestive. At a time when Israel was asking the Trump transition team to intervene to derail the resolution, the question is whether Flynn would have approached Kislyak on his own initiative.
Flynn’s own answer to that question – in his guilty plea – is now on the record, alleging that a senior member of the Trump transition team “directed” him to make contact with Russian officials in December 2016.
And while the identity of that “senior transition official” has not been revealed there have been hints, not least the Wall Street Journal’s report last month that special counsel Robert Mueller has been investigating the attempt by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to block the passage of the resolution 2334 – the same effort that Flynn, it now appears, lied to the FBI about.
We can be certain no one in the US media will demand a thorough investigation into collusion between US officials and Israel. Currently, 51 Senators — from both parties — are signed on to a bill which would make boycotting the state of Israel a criminal offense, First Amendment be damned.
Buzzfeed in their own piece suggested these revelations could only “potentially be relevant to Mueller’s investigation into allegations of collusion between Russian officials and Trump campaign staffers.”

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

@GazaBoatConvoy Vs. The Lobby

perspective.jpg
Reported by Gilad Atzmon

 Jewish Labour councillor Adam Langleben (@adamlangleben) is angry that his demands haven’t been promptly met.

 “There is a member of the Labour Party in the constituency where I am a councillor,” Langleben told the JC.  “She is an antisemite. I put in a complaint in July and to date no action has been taken. She continues to attend meetings and take part in street stalls. I believe in due process and I had hoped that my formal complaint would lead to a swift and speedy conclusion… But it has not.”
The Labour party is being blamed for not taking action against an active party member who ‘attends meetings and takes part in street stalls.’ The member in question runs a Twitter account called “GazaBoatConvoy”.
This Twitter account is known to many of us as an outspoken supporter of Palestine and an opponent of Zionism and Jewish power. So it is no surprise that Jewish councillor Langleben, a rabid pro Israel Labour (local) politician, is unhappy with GazaBoatConvoy. But he has a point, it is  perplexing that the Labour party has been so slow to react. Considering its total domination by Jewish institutions as shown by the Labour party’s current purge, one would have expected GazaBoatConvoy to be booted back in July.
Apparently, the Labour party is not doing its job very well. Although it was initially committed to working class politics, operating as a Jewish thought police and running kangaroo trials on a massive scale and on  behalf of The Lobby has taken its toll. Seemingly, there are a few ethical Labour members still hanging on to their membership cards.
According to the Jewish councillor, GazaBoatConvoy describes itself as a Labour member who joined the party as part of its £3 membership offer in 2015 specifically to vote for Jeremy Corbyn. The convoy  tweeted in April 2016 that “I want my £3 back. I thought Corbyn would rid Labour of Zionist occupation. Seems he buckled under Zio bullying”. As we can see, the Jewish councillor also wants to cleanse the miserable party of any sense of irony.
Langleben told the JC that “what had angered him the most about this case..was that the person in question was ‘abusing the Palestinian cause’ to promote a ‘sick and twisted’ view of Jews.”
I wonder, is it really down to a pro Israel Jewish councillor with zero record of activity in support of Palestinians to determine what ‘serves’ the Palestinian cause? I am also not sure that a pro Israel Labour politician is an impartial judge of what is or what isn’t a ‘twisted view of the Jews.’
“There are millions of people who care about the Palestinians, and they go about that without being antisemitic. But there is a… narrow strain of pro-Palestinian activism which engages in the blatant antisemitism that we’d expect from the BNP or the Nazi party”.
This is a common mistake that must be addressed once and for all. If Labour Party’s values are ‘built on equality and social justice’ as the Party’s website insists, then the Party must depart from its Big Brother McCarthyite culture. If  ‘Labour values’ mean anything at all, then the Party must reject Israel and Zionism. It must  openly support Palestinian resistance and endorse the notion of absolute freedom of expression. At the moment, we see the complete opposite.  The Labour Party has been reduced into an Orwellian grotesque.  It demands each of its members to perform a total submission to a peculiar immoral foreign Zio-centric narrative.
I am not holding my breath. I do not see Corbyn as forceful enough to amend the situation and as far as I am aware, there are no members of the Labour Party who could push for an ethical transition of any sort. In its present incarnation, the Labour party has been hijacked by the interests of a tiny, yet influential foreign lobby.
Bearing in mind Labour’s hopeless situation, I hereby offer a simple resolution for the current GazaBoatConvoy affair. I would suggest that the Party expel GazaBoatConvoy at once or better yet, exchange  GazaBoatConvoy’ for the notorious Anti Zionist Zionist Tony Greenstein (cowboy) as he perfectly embodies Labour’s political duplicity and crypto Zionist affiliation. 
 Problem solved I guess…
exvjange.jpg
cover bit small.jpg
Being in Time – A Post Political Manifesto, 
Amazon.co.uk , Amazon.com and  here (gilad.co.uk). 

If there was real democracy in the U.S. you wouldn’t finish up with a numpty as President


African-American children gather near a voter registration booth in the early 1960s. (Kheel Center, Cornell University / Wikimedia)
The passivity of the American populace in the face of the endlessly outrageous presidency of Donald Trump is chilling to behold. There were some meaningful outbursts of mass anger over and against his patently discriminatory travel ban and against early Trump-led Republican efforts to throw millions of Americans off health insurance. Beyond those early protests, however, it’s been abject surrender for the most part.
There were no mass protests when President Trump embraced and advanced the greenhouse gassing-to-death of life on earth by pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord or when Trump approved the ecocidal, planet-cooking Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.
No mass marches rocked the nation when Trump advance-pardoned a convicted racist and fascist county sheriff (Joe Arpaio) who created deadly open-air “concentration camps” (Arpaio’s own proud term) to detain suspected undocumented immigrants of Latino background.
The streets stayed silent when Trump defended neo-Nazis and other vicious white nationalists, offering them dog-whistle encouragement after they marched and killed in defense of Confederate (slave power) war statues.
Nobody marched on the White House when Trump threatened genocidal and thermonuclear war (“fire and fury”) on North Korea, putting millions of lives at risk on and around the Korean Peninsula.
Trump’s remaking of the federal bench in the image of the hard-right Federalist Society has yet to elicit significant mass protest. The same goes for Trump’s brazen killing of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Syria, his support for Saudi Arabia’s U.S.-equipped devastation of Yemen, his epic bungling of Puerto Rican disaster relief, and the numerous insults he hurled at Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
Trump’s moronic and arch-nativist wall to be built on the southern U.S. border has failed to spark mass resistance. Neither has his push for an openly plutocratic tax cut that will make the already obscenely hyper-opulent U.S. superrich even more grotesquely wealthy—this even as the top 10th of the upper 1 percent in the U.S. already possesses as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and half the U.S. population is poor or near poor.
The passivity of the citizenry in the face of all this and more is particularly chilling when seen against the progressive, social-democratic and left-leaning profile of majority U.S. public opinion. As the left-liberal magazine In These Times reported three days before Trump’s inauguration, a “broad consensus … has emerged in the United States around progressive policies.” The progressive consensus, author Theo Anderson noted, “cuts across economic and social issues and includes even traditional culture-war flashpoints. On most policy questions, polling shows that about three-fifths or more of the public prefers progressive positions.” The nation’s all-too-silent progressive majority supports federally funded universal national health insurance, progressive taxation, collective bargaining rights, campaign finance reform, a higher minimum wage, free child care, legalized marijuana, abortion rights, LGBT rights, and a shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
An October CNN poll showed that just a third (34 percent) of Americans support Trump’s tax cuts, whereas 52 percent oppose them and 14 percent are unsure. Only 24 percent agree with Trump and his Republican allies that the cuts will make families “better off if they are passed.” An October CBS poll found that 58 percent of Americans believe the Trump tax “reform” favors the wealthy, with just 19 percent believing it “treats everyone equally” and a mere 18 percent agreeing that it “favors the middle-class.”
Surely, this graphic chasm between majority citizen wishes and government policy is the stuff revolutions, or at least great social protest and resistance movements, are made of in nations claiming to be democracies, yes? Not in the contemporary U.S., where the populace is staying off the streets and out of social movements for the most part.
“We the people” have other, supposedly more urgent and meaningful things to do with our lives than joining together to confront a corrupt and sociopathic right-wing government that brazenly defies majority sentiment by pushing for an ever-increasing concentration of wealth, for more racist mass incarceration, for a deepening decimation of the public sector, for the removal of millions of poor and sick people from health coverage, for the right-wing takeover of the judiciary, for the shift of yet more taxpayer money to the nation’s giant war machine, and for the accelerated ruination of livable ecology.
What gives? Part of the problem is that the disconnect between majority opinion and policy is anything but novel. It’s hardly restricted to the Trump era. It’s a long-standing and richly bipartisan phenomenon. As the distinguished liberal political scientists Benjamin Page (Northwestern University) and Marin Gilens (Princeton) show in their important new volume “Democracy in America?”:
[T]he best evidence indicates that the wishes of ordinary Americans actually have had little or no impact on the making of federal government policy. Wealthy individuals and organized interest groups—especially business corporations—have had much more political clout. When they are taken into account, it becomes apparent that the general public has been virtually powerless. … The will of majorities is often thwarted by the affluent and the well-organized, who block popular policy proposals and enact special favors for themselves. …
This is equally true regardless of which of the two dominant political organizations hold nominal power in the executive and/or legislative branches, as Page and Gilens show.
It’s been going on for decades, and it has conditioned millions of Americans to give up on politics altogether. “Voters feel, rightly,” Anderson wrote, “that their voices don’t count. They become more cynical and disengage.” It’s nothing new.
Another and related factor is the dogged hold in U.S. political culture of the notion that the time for meaningful popular say on matters of policy is during the biennial elections that are sold to the populace as the only and real politics that matter. Again and again, people are told that going into a two-(capitalist-)ballot box for two minutes once every two or four years is a great and glorious exercise in popular self-rule. “Rejoice, citizens,” the U.S. wealth and power elite, its ubiquitous commercial media and its many highly indoctrinated intellectuals tell the people, “you get/had your participation on Election Day. Thank a military veteran.”
Nine years ago, then-Vice President Dick Cheney had an interesting response when ABC News’ Martha Raddatz told him recent polls showed that two-thirds of the U.S. populace thought the war in (on) Iraq was “not worth fighting.”
Cheney smiled as he replied, “So?”
“So … you don’t care what the American people think?” Raddatz pressed.
“No,” Cheney elaborated. “I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in public opinion polls.”
Justifying Cheney’s blunt remarks shortly afterward, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was asked if the citizenry should have input on U.S. policy. “You had your input,” Perino proclaimed. “The American people have input every four years, and that’s the way our system is set up.”
The great majority of Americans technically disagreed. Fully 94 percent of U.S. citizensat the time said that government leaders should pay attention to the views of the public between elections.
But so what? Telling pollsters you think something should be done is one thing. Acting to bring it about is something else. After some early and giant anti-war marches, the U.S. populace launched no serious great rebellion against the Bush-Cheney regime and its monumentally illegal, mass murderous invasion and occupation of Iraq. It fell back into the standard time-staggered position of electoralist default. The citizenry qua electorate tolerated the mind-boggling Iraq crime and many other Bush administration transgressions, falling prey twice in a row to the docility-inducing illusion of progressive change through presidential elections. The spectacular, multicolor 2008 election pageant delivered a culturally rebranded corporate state and empire, with Wall Street’s privileges intact and America’s vast global military machine still set on “Kill” under the “imperial grandmaster” and surveillance champion Barack Obama.
Some political scientists argue that regular elections that generate competitive contests for citizen votes are all that is required for a nation to be a democracy. They are dead wrong. “Elections alone,” Page and Gilens note, “do not guarantee democracy.” That is an understatement.
“Democracy in America?” shows that majority opinion is trumped by a deadly complex of forces in the U.S.: campaign finance, candidate selection, lobbying and policy. Powerful and wealthy individuals, corporations and interest groups set the agenda for the special primary-election influence of extreme party activists. We also have the disproportionately affluent, white and older composition of the active (voting) electorate, the manipulation of voter turnout, the widespread dissemination of “distracting, confusing, misleading, and just plain false information,” unrepresentative political institutions (the Electoral College, the unelected Supreme Court, the over-representation of the predominantly white rural population in the U.S. Senate, and one-party rule in the House), constitutional and related partisan gridlock, and the fragmentation of authority in government.
Mammon reigns. American “public” policy, Page and Gilens write, “reflects the wishes of those with money, not the wishes of the millions of ordinary citizens who turn out every two years to choose among the preapproved, money-vetted candidates for federal office.”
Page and Gilens leave out much that is central to the problem of how the rich rule America. They say nothing about the rise of a lethal and ubiquitous police, prison and surveillance state inside the U.S. (The story of government repression of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, and of earlier left and anti-plutocratic movements, is missing from their volume.) The intimately related problem of the giant U.S. military state and global empire (great forms of upward wealth distribution and authoritarian power) is glaringly absent. The critical and ongoing historical roles of racial and ethnic division and “divide and rule” are barely touched upon. Also omitted are the critical ideological and propagandistic, consent-manufacturing roles of the corporate media and the capture of the nation’s educational system by the corporate and financial elite.
Another key omission in “Democracy in America?” is the workplace. As the radical economist Richard Wolff reminds us, ordinary working-class and working-age Americans spend most of their waking lives on the job, under the authoritarian and often despotic supervision of employers. Until its workers own, direct and structure their own workplaces as “associated producers,” democratically determining the purpose and nature of their productive activities and appropriating the surplus generated for themselves and the broader common good, it is difficult to think of a society as meaningfully democratic.
Capitalism and democracy have long stood in fundamental opposition to each other—a problem that does not engage Page and Gilens.
Still, their book is a devastating indictment of the inner plutocratic workings of an elections system that is falsely trumpeted as an unmatched model of popular self-rule. If the book’s findings were properly appreciated, disseminated and discussed, Americans might focus less on elections and candidates and more on building the kinds of great grass-roots, sociopolitical movements that have shaken the nation to its foundations and shifted its direction in the past. The Congress of Industrial Organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Council, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the anti-Vietnam War movement hardly waited for election dates and the sympathy of politicians to change things. They undertook powerful non-electoral direct actions like the sit-down strike wave of 1936-37, the courageous lunch counter sit-ins and Freedom Rides of 1960-62, and the many mass mobilizations for peace that occurred in the 1960s and early ’70s. Slaves and abolitionists didn’t wait for the 1864 presidential election to force President Lincoln’s hand (along with the Confederacy’s early military victories in the Civil War) on emancipation.
“The really critical thing,” the great American radical historian Howard Zinn noted after George W. Bush was first installed in the White House, “isn’t who’s sitting in the White House, but who is sitting in—in the streets, in the cafeterias, in the halls of government, in the factories.”
As Zinn elaborated in an essay on and against the “Election Madness” he saw “engulfing the entire society including the left” in the year of Obama’s ascendancy, an “election frenzy seizes the country every four years because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls. …” Zinn acknowledged that he probably would support one major-party candidate over another “for two minutes—the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.”
But then he said the same thing as Dick Cheney, but with a very different meaning: So what? “Before and after those two minutes,” Zinn wrote:
[O]ur time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice. … We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism. … Before [elections] … and after … we should be taking direct action against the obstacles to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. … Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.
This is why I resisted the temptation to be awestruck by the remarkable outpouring of Americans who protested the inauguration of Donald Trump in January. Cable news talking heads marveled at the marches, calling them the “biggest social movement since the 1960s.” But what were those massive but polite, pink-hatted marches all about? While many of the chants and signs heard and seen at the historic marches indicated policy concerns, the clear and simple thing that had put millions in the streets was the awful man who is now sitting in the White House. It was about an election outcome. The new president hadn’t even made any policy yet. What he’s actually done as president has yet to generate protests remotely on the scale of the ones sparked by the Awful One’s entrance into the Oval Office.
Most of the millions who hit the streets to voice outrage against the election of Trump would have stayed home if it had been the dismal arch-corporatist and “lying neoliberal warmonger” Hillary Clinton being inaugurated. And that is very telling. As Chris Hedges noted in the summer of 2016:
The predatory financial institutions on Wall Street will trash the economy and loot the U.S. Treasury on the way to another economic collapse whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton is president. Poor, unarmed people of color will be gunned down in the streets of our cities whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton is president. The system of neo-slavery in our prisons, where we keep poor men and poor women of color in cages because we have taken from them the possibility of employment, education and dignity, will be maintained whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton is president. Millions of undocumented people will be deported whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton is president. Austerity programs will cut or abolish public services, further decay the infrastructure and curtail social programs whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton is president. Money will replace the vote whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton is president. And half the country, which now lives in poverty, will remain in misery whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton becomes president. This is not speculation. We know this because there has been total continuity on every issue, from trade agreements to war to mass deportations, between the Bush administration and the administration of Barack Obama. … The problem is not Donald Trump. The problem is capitalism. And this is the beast we are called to fight and slay. Until that is done, nothing of substance will change. … To reduce the political debate, as [Bernie] Sanders and others are doing, to political personalities is political infantilism. We have undergone a corporate coup. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will not reverse this coup. They, like Barack Obama, know where the centers of power lie. They serve these centers of power.
The dysfunctional overfocus on who’s sitting in the White House—yes, the horrific Boss Tweet—is sustained between the quadrennial election spectacles by the cable news talking heads and the late-night comedians, for whom Trump is a gift that keeps on giving. It is fed by hopes for impeachment on grounds of collusion with Russia in the subversion of our supposed great democratic electoral process.
All the evils that Hedges mentions would survive the impeachment and removal of Trump. Nothing of substance would change.
Zinn and Hedges’ wise words belong in the front of the minds of all citizens and workers who want to see democracy break out and take hold at long last in the oligarchic United States. They help us keep our eyes on the real prize: changing policy in a progressive direction and radically restructuring society beneath and beyond the biennial and quadrennial big-money, major-media, candidate-centered “electoral extravaganzas” (Noam Chomsky) that are sold to us as politics, “the only politics that matters.”
Zinn and Hedges’ counsel also help keep us on guard against the parasitic army of Democratic Party politicos who are constantly working to stick their poisonous claws into social movements. Beneath their deceptive language of “resistance,” the “progressive” politicos’ underlying agenda is always to channel genuine popular resistance into narrow get-out-the-vote efforts for Democratic candidates. Their mission is to drown social movements in the icy waters of major-party political calculation and the endless dollar-drenched and candidate-focused “Election Madness.” (See anti-war activist and attorney Phillip Crawford’s remarkable account titled “Whatever Happened to the Trump Resistance?” on how the Democratic Party front-group Indivisible played this role earlier this year in Monterey County, Calif.). They are snake oil salesmen hawking the false belief that we can win progressive change by “turning out every two years to choose among the preapproved, money-vetted candidates” (Page and Gilens).
The sooner we develop a different and more Zinnian politics—one concerned less with who’s sitting in the White House (and Congress and state government) than with who’s sitting in the streets, shop floors, offices, halls of government—the sooner we’ll have a chance of getting on the path to a decent and democratic future.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

بن سلمان والمهمة المستحيلة .. النوم في بيت العنكبوت


 سيستيقظ الحالم قيس ويظن أنه في بيت ليلى العامرية ليكتشف أنه نام في بيت العنكبوت .. وليست هناك ليلى بل أنثى عنكبوت صهيونية ستأكله حتى قبل رقصة الحب والزواج ..

بقلم نارام سرجون

من المعيب أننا في خصومتنا مع الآخرين وصراعنا معهم حتى الموت نمسك كل ماتقع عليه ايدينا لنرجمهم به من أجل الفوز بأي ثمن .. نرجمهم بلحم البشر ونرشقهم بدماء الناس ونرميهم بالكتب المقدسة ونضربهم بالمآذن والأجراس والصلبان والقرآن ..

القتال مع الخصوم أيضا قتال مع جشع الذات وحيوانيتها .. فليس المهم أن ننتصر كما تفكر الثقافة الغربية الرأسمالية بل المهم أيضا كيف ننتصر .. فالثقافة السياسية الغربية تحنث بالعهود والوعود وتطعن في الظهر وتكذب وتقسم أن الله قد أعطى أرضك لشعبه المختار وترشقك بجثث اخوانك وتفبرك الحكايات والشهود لتقول أنك قتلت الناس بالسلاح الكيماوي وهي التي لاتزال يدها مخضبة باليورانيوم المنضب ولاتزال تقطر من أصابعها دماء هيروشيما الساخنة الملوثة بالاشعاع .. وتشكوك وتتهمك بأنك تقتلع أظافر الأطفال في السجون وتجتث الحناجر وتقطّع أجساد الصبايا .. وهي التي قتلت أطفالا أكثر مما قتل في حروب البشر مجتمعين ..

وأجمل مافي نصرنا أنه نصر نظيف جدا .. لم نغلفه بالأكاذيب والادعاءات .. وسنحافظ على أجمل شيء في الحرب والنصر وهو طهارتهما من نجس الدعاية والكذب والترويج .. ولذلك اياكم أن يغريكم النصر فتستسهلوا ظلم الحكايات والروايات وتستسهلوا القاء الذرائع والادعاءات ..

في حربنا مع الأسرة المالكة السعودية تبدو المعركة أسهل جدا من غيرها لأن مالدى المملكة من آثام ورزايا وعار يكفينا الحاجة لان نبحث عن ذرائع ووسائل لهدمها .. فأنى يممت وجهك شممت في الهواء رائحة السعودية قادمة مع دخان الحرائق وملفات الفساد والجريمة والخيانة .. وتنبعث رائحتها من جراح أطفال فلسطين واليمن الذين تقتلهم رصاصات بارودها من رمال جزيرة العرب ..ولذلك فنحن في غنى عن الاختلاق والتلفيق .. ولدينا فائض من الحقيقة عندما نكتب .. ولذلك فاننا عندما نتناول شأنا سعوديا فاننا لانجعله جذابا ومقروءا بتزيينه بالأكاذيب بل نزخرفه بالحقائق ونعلق عليه أجراسا صنعناها من أعماق الضمير ..

من الأسئلة التي يتداولها الناس هذه الأيام هذا الاندفاع المستميت لاعلان الزواج بين اسرائيل والسعودية .. حيث يتشاطر السعوديون في عملية التسريع في التحالف العلني مع الاسرائيليين .. فيما يبدو الاسرائيليون مستعجلين أكثر في هذا السباق .. وتقوم السعودية باطلاق بالونات اختبار وعملية حقن بلقاح التطبيع التدريجي عبر تصريحات ومصافحات ولقاءات بين شخصيات سعودية واسرائيلية وتسريبات مدروسة التوقيت بعناية بحيث تتوالى الاخبار وفق تكرار مدروس وروتين يحافظ على الاستمرار كيلا تغيب أخبار التطبيع أكثر من اسبوع لتحقن في الاعلام أخبار جديدة لتتابع عملية هدم المناعة النفسية للناس المضادة للتطبيع بلقاحات الأخبار عن لقاءات سعودية واسرائيلية علنية وترحيب من قبل اعلاميين وصحفيين من الطرفين بهذا التغيير .. فهناك من يصافح صباحا وهناك من يعانق مساء .. واليوم هناك من يدعو للسياحة في تل ابيب كي يرد عليه الاسرائيليون بسياحة أحسن منها في الحرم المكي والتقاط الصور قرب قبر النبي .. ومصادر المملكة الرسمية لاتنفي اطلاقا عبر القصر ووزارة الخارجية أي اتهامات وتتجاهل عمدا كل الانتقادات الحادة الموجهة لها بهذا الشأن .. وتريد بهذا الوجه المتحجر الذي لاتبدو عليه امارات التعجب او الاستهجان او حتى القبول ان تصبح عملية التطبيع مع الاسرايليين سهلة جدا وناضجة ويكون العقل العربي والاسلامي قد تهيأ لها لأنه يتلقى الأخبار الصادمة دون نفي او استهجان فيتكرر التلقي الى أن يصبح اعتياديا كما يحدث عند حقن اللقاحات التي فيها فيروسات مضعفة لاتسبب المرض لكن الجهاز المناعي يتعرف على خصائصها كيلا يتفاجأ بها عندما تهاجمه وهي قوية ..

ولاندري من شدة الشوق بين الطرفين من الذي يسعى أكثر الى اللقاء .. ولكن الاسرائيليين مستعجلون جدا للتطبيع مع السعودية لأنها بالنسبة لهم الفرصة التي لن تتكرر حيث تحس السعودية أن التذرع بالخطر الايراني الداهم وتخويف المسلمين والعرب من الغول الايراني ذو الفك الشيعي هو فرصة لن تتكرر بعد أن ابتلعت الجماهير الطعم المذهبي وهي تستعمله من أجل تبرير التحالف مع الاسرائيليين بشكل علني بعد أن كان سرّيا (على شكل تفاهم مديد منذ تأسيس الكياني السعودي الوهابي والصهيوني اليهودي) ..

وستكون السعودية في حرج كبير اذا ماتغير نظام الحكم فجأة في ايران وحل محله نظام موال للغرب وصديق للسعودية لأن مبرر التحالف مع اسرائيل او التطبيع معها سيتلاشى .. فقد واجهت السعودية خصوما أخطر من ايران تمثلوا بالرئيس جمال عبد الناصر والرئيس صدام حسين .. وكلاهما قالا في السعودية أكثر بكثير مما قالته ايران ودعيا الى اسقاط نظامها العميل ووصلا بجنودهما الى حدودها في اليمن والكويت بل وتجاوز صدام حسين الحدود السعودية في الخفجي ودخل اليها بقوات عراقية وهو مالم تفعله قوة معادية لاايرانية ولا من حزب الله .. ولكن السعودية لم تجد حاجة ماسة أو جرأة كافية للتحالف العلني مع اسرائيل ضد ناصر او صدام حسين بالرغم مما فعلا واكتفت بالتنسيق المطلق في الظلام مع اسرائيل حتى دحرت تجربة ناصر وهزمت مشروع صدام حسين ..

ولكن مع ايران الوضع مختلف جدا لأن ايران ليست عربية مثل مصر والعراق عندما لم يكن ممكنا تبرير التحالف حتى مع الشيطان – كما تدعي – من أجل الدفاع عن المملكة لأن هذا لن يبدو سهل الهضم في المساجد والمقاهي من المحيط الى الخليج .. رغم أن صدام حسين فعل بالخليج أكثر مما فعلته ايران اذ دفع بدباباته الى الخليج وتحدث عن عصر تنتهي فيه الاسر المالكة الخليجية “المقبورة” .. ومع ذلك لم تجرؤ السعودية على الصراخ والاستغاثة بتل أبيب رغم ان عدو العدو هو صديق وكانت تستطيع الى حد ما تبرير التحالف مع اسرائيل ضد صدام حسين الذي قالت انه غزا الكويت حيث ألقى “جنوده المتوحشون” الأطفال من الحاضنات في المشافي كما روت سعاد الصباح في شهادتها الشهيرة الكاذبة التي تفوق كذبة اسلحة الدمار الشامل .. وحاول صدام حسين بالحاح ان يظهر هذا التحالف بين اسرائيل والسعودية باطلاق صواريخه على اسرائيل وعلى السعودية معا ودفع بقواته الى مدينة الخفجي السعودية كي ترد عليه السعودية واسرائيل ويظهر الجيش العراقي يواجه السعوديين والاسرائيليين معا كحلفاء .. ولكن الحذر السعودي والاسرائيلي كان أكبر بكثير من محاولته .. لان اظهار التحالف السعودي الصهيوني كانت له خطورته في تلك الايام بسبب تأجج المشاعر التي التهبت بخطوة صدام حسين الذي تجرأ على الممالك النفطية وقال لها مايقال في كل بيت عربي من المحيط الى الخليج .. والتي أظهرت ان الجماهير العربية تكره بشدة حكومات دول الخليج النفطية (المحتلة) وتكن لها الاحتقار الشديد وتنظر اليها على أنها مستعمرات يجب تحريرها وهي تشبه اسرائيل في تكوينها اللاشرعي واحتلالها للشعوب .. وأظهر تأييد الشعوب العربية لضدام حسين أن لهذه الشعوب ثأرا مع حكام النفط ..

أما اليوم فان ايران يمكن ببساطة أن تصنف بتصنيفات لانهاية لها .. فارسية .. صفوية .. مجوسية .. شيعية .. الخ .. ولكنها ليست عربية .. ولذلك تسقط حرمة كل من يتعاون معها حتى لو كان عربيا مثل حزب الله وحماس وسورية .. وتستطيع السعودية ان تعزف على هذه الاوتار العديدة كل الالحان النشاز وتنتقل الى تحالف علني بذريعة أنها اليوم تتزعم قومية عربية تواجه قومية فارسية .. أو مذهبا سنيا يواجه مذهبا شيعيا .. وهذا كله يتيحه التحالف مع قومية أخرى وديانة أخرى متوفرة في اسرائيل ..

مايلفت النظر هو هذه العجلة السعودية والاسرائيلية لانهاء هذا التردد والانتظار الذي طال بضعة عقود .. ويبدو الطرفان في سباق مع الزمن حتى أننا صرنا عاجزين عن اللحاق بتصريحات الغزل والحب والصداقة والتعاون والمصير المشترك بين اسرائيل والسعودية .. حتى أن من يستمع الى الغزل بينهما يحس بالحرج والخجل لأنه صار أكثر مايشبه الغزل بين قيس بن الملوح وبنت عمه ليلى العامرية ..

ولكن لم هذه العجلة في اعلان الحب بين قيس وليلى اليهودية؟؟

هذه العجلة تفسر على أنها خوف مشترك بينهما من نتيجة الحرب في سورية التي هزمت فيها طموحات السعودية واسرائيل معا .. وصار من الواضح أن الحرب قد تسببت بخسائر كبيرة معنوية للسعودية التي كشفت الحرب انها حليف أصيل لاسرائيل منذ النكبة وقد انقشعت كل الحجب بعد أن بدا جليا ان السعودية ساعدت اسرائل على تدمير العراق وعزل مصر ومشروع اسقاط سورية .. وهذه الدول الثلاث هي الدول التي يمكن لها وحدها اسقاط المشروع الصهيوني .. وكشفت الحرب أيضا ان السعودية هي النبع التكفيري الذي أنتج داعش والنصرة والحركات الاسلامية العنيفة وكشفت الحرب السورية فشل أهم جيش سري للناتو وهو القاعدة ومشتقاتها وصار من الضروري اخفاء البصمات وأدوات الجريمة .. كما أن الحرب قد تسببت بتغيرات عسكرية دراماتيكية لم تكن تخطر على بال أحد فالجيش السوري وحلفاؤه من حزب الله وايران قد صار بحوزتهم جيش متناسق موحد منسجم ومتناغم وهو يمتلك أثمن ماتمتلكه الجيوش المحاربة وهو الخبرة القتالية في أصعب ظروف قتالية .. فما حدث لم يكن مجرد حرب عادية بل هي مناورات هائلة المساحة والانتشار ومزج بين قوام الجيش وقوام وحدات الكوماندوز .. فولد مخلوق جديد في العلوم العسكرية لم تعهده الجيوش وهو (الجيش المكمدز) اي مزيج الجيش النظامي الذي يدرب تدريب الكوماندوز .. وجرت عملية تحديث شاملة تبنتها روسيا للأسلحة والوسائط النارية وتجهزات الحرب الالكترونية المعقدة .. أي أن نتائج الحرب كانت كارثية على السعودية واسرائيل على عكس التوقعات ..

السعودية تريد ان تقبض على اللحظة الاخيرة التي شرب فيها الجمهور العربي والاسلامي كله من بول البعير .. وتحول الى جمهور لايكترث بفلسطين بل بالمذاهب في فلسطين وحولها ولم يعد يعنيه مشروع صدام حسين لتحرير الخليج من الاسر الحاكمة بل صار مسكونا بهواجس الهلال الشيعي والخلافة والخرافة .. ولكن نهاية الحرب السورية ستعيده الى لحظة فلسطين وتخرجه من رحلة البحث عن المذاهب حول فلسطين ..

ان كل ماأنجزته اسرائيل من عملية التطبيع المستمرة دون كلل عبر كامب ديفيد واوسلو ووادي عربة قد ينهار تماما بنهاية الحرب السورية عندما يجد العرب والمسلمون أنهم أمام قوة عسكرية هائلة للحلفاء من سورية الى ايران تلجم اسرائيل وتحدد حركتها .. وسيعود الجمهور الى لحظة تاريخية قاسية جدا على اسرائيل عندما بهر السيد حسن نصرالله وحزب الله العرب والمسلمين بتحديهم اسرئيل عام 2006 رغم كل مابذلته ورغم كل المؤامرة العربية والتحالف السعودي (السري) مع اسرائيل .. ولذلك فان من الضروري لاسرائيل والسعودية المتابعة بنفس زخم التذخير المذهبي والقومي والطائفي والعنصري والتخويفي من ايران لخلق حالة التحام عاطفي ونفسي ومصيري مع اسرائيل قبل ان يتم الالتحام من جديد مع مشروع مناوئ لاسرائيل ..

ولكن بكل تأكيد فان السيف قد سبق العذل بالنسبة للسعودية واسرائيل .. لأن عملية التطبيع كانت تسير بنجاح منقطع النظير مع انتصارات مشروع داعش والنصرة وجيش الاسلام .. غير أن مشروع التطبيع وتغيير العدو يحتاج الى انتصار كي يكمل مسيرته .. لأن التطبيع يفرضه المنتصر وليس المهزوم ..فالسادات احتاج الى نصر (ولو تلفزيوني) وليس الى هزيمة ليبرر لنفسه ركوب التطبيع .. ولو انه لم يحقق نصرا نسبه لنفسه لكانت عملية السلام مع تل ابيب صعبة جدا عليه وتسبب رد فعل كبيرا .. ومن هنا كانت مراجعات سينار الحرب في اوكتوبر وثغرة الدفرسوار التي مهدت لقبول مشروع السادات بعد اداعئه أنه صانع الانتصار ولديه مشروع مكمل للانتصار .. ولذا فانه كان قادرا أن يتكئ على معركة العبور التي نسبها لنفسه ليبرر قراره التالي بالسلام .. أما الأسرة السعودية فان مأزقها كبير جدا وعملية التطبيع مع اسرائيل خرقاء جدا في توقيتها لأنها تواجه محورا منتصرا في الشمال على اسرائيل التي تريد ان تتحالف معها وهذا المحور يمسك أوراقا قوية وخطيرة للغاية أمام اسرائيل المقيدة والخائفة من الحرب .. فما هو مبرر هذا التحالف مع طرف لم ينتصر ؟؟ .. وسيزداد الأمر تعقيدا اذا لحقت باسرائيل هزيمة أخرى من اي نوع ولو في معركة صغيرة فكيف اذا نفذ حزب الله مشروعه باجتياح الجليل أو محاصرته في اية مواجهة مقبلة ؟؟ .. وهنا سيكون الناس أمام مشروعين: مشروع تطبيع بلا انتصارات تبرره وتمثله السعودية .. ومشروع تحرير ممانع للتطبيع ومتسلح بانتصار كبير تمثله ايران وسورية وحزب الله .. والناس تميل الى الانتصار لأنه جذاب وتصدق نظريات المنتصر وتسكن اليها .. فالنصر مهما كان هو المغناطيس الذي يجذب الناس وخاصة في الشرق الذي أدمن الهزائم والذل والانكسار .. وسيلحق الناس بالمنتصرين كما لو كانوا منومين مغناطيسيا ..

ولذلك لاأمل من مشروع بن سلمان في التطبيع بذريعة ايران العدوة والخطرة على الأمن العربي والسني لأنه ببساطة يحتاج نصرا واضحا ساطعا وكاسحا في جبهة ما كي يؤمن الناس بنظريات المنتصر ..

ولكن

 ماأصعب النصر اليوم .. انه أصعب شيء يمكن ان يناله ملك مأزوم يحارب عدة حروب ويخشى عائلته .. يحاول يوما أن يكون نابوليون بونابرت في الصباح .. وفي المساء يحب ان يلعب دور المجدد ومؤسس الجمهورية السعودية مثل مصطفى كمال أتاتورك .. وفي الليل قيس بن الملوح .. وفي الفجر يستيقظ مذعورا على صوت صاروخ يمني يسقط في حديقة قصره .. انه كابوس أنه لم يستطع حتى ان يهزم الجياع في اليمن .. فكيف سينتصر في الشمال؟؟ .. وكيف يمكن لقيس الحالم أن يطبّع وأن يراقص ليلى ويتزوجها على سنة الله ورسوله .. من غير نصر على حلفاء نصر الله .. ؟؟ سيستيقظ الحالم قيس ويظن أنه في بيت ليلى العامرية ليكتشف أنه نام في بيت العنكبوت .. وليست هناك ليلى بل أنثى عنكبوت صهيونية ستأكله حتى قبل رقصة الحب والزواج ..


   ( الخميس 2017/11/30 SyriaNow)

 Related Video


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

IDF-linked Think Tank Admits israel, ISIS Are Allies in Confronting Iran in Syria

A new Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report says that ISIS and Israel are temporary allies against Iran.
A new report suggests that in the area of countering Iran’s presence in Syria, ISIS and Israel’s interests may converge, which in a way makes them allies. Despite suggesting no formal alliance between ISIS and Israel, an IDF affiliated think tank Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reports that interests of both ISIS and Israel align, making them allies against Iran.
Regarding ISIS, the report says it,
“will likely change its combat patterns and revert to guerrilla tactics and terrorism following the end of the campaign against it in Iraq, and may carry out hit-and-run attacks against Iranian vehicles moving along the land corridor (Iranian vehicles may be perceived as attractive targets for ISIS in its new incarnation).”
Iran’s intervention in Syria “fans the flames of conflict with ISIS, which retains significant operational capabilities even after the collapse of the Islamic States.” In addition, the report says,
“We assess that Iran and the militias under their patronage will struggle to provide an adequate response to this terrorism challenge.”
It continues:
“The Iranian presence in Syria increases the likelihood of friction with Israel and may lead to an escalation between the two countries at a timing that is not suitable for Iran.”
It says this in light of numerous reports of Israeli airstrikes in Syria, some reportedly close to Damascus, against Iranian weapons transfers to Hezbollah.
The report describes Iran’s goals as:
“Bolstering the pressure mechanisms and escalating the threat posed to Israel, while creating a state of deterrence. This is mainly by augmenting the military capabilities of Hezbollah, developing the abilities of Hezbollah to manufacture weapons, and establishing local terror networks in the Golan Heights, with the aim of creating a new front for challenging Israel.”
Now that ISIS is no longer an invasion threat to Israel, Israel can now unambiguously view ISIS attacks on Iran and Iranian proxies as beneficial, which isn’t without precedent. Top Israeli military officials previously spoke among those lines, with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon saying that Iran was worse than ISIS and would rather deal with the Caliphate than with Tehran in early 2016.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!