Bill Moyers Journal
July 3, 2009
Bill Moyers speaks with Cornel West, Serene Jones, and Gary Dorrien for a fresh take on what our core ethics and values as a society say about America’s politics, policy, and the challenges of balancing capitalism and democracy.
by Howard Zinn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
July 4, 2009
Excerpt from The Progressive July 3, 2009
There are things that happen in the world that are bad, and you want to do something about them. You have a just cause. But our culture is so war prone that we immediately jump from, “This is a good cause” to “This deserves a war.”
You need to be very, very comfortable in making that jump.
The American Revolution—independence from England—was a just cause. Why should the colonists here be occupied by and oppressed by England? But therefore, did we have to go to the Revolutionary War?
How many people died in the Revolutionary War?
Nobody ever knows exactly how many people die in wars, but it’s likely that 25,000 to 50,000 people died in this one. So let’s take the lower figure—25,000 people died out of a population of three million. That would be equivalent today to two and a half million people dying to get England off our backs.
You might consider that worth it, or you might not.
By Jeremy R. Hammond
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Foreign Policy Journal
July 4, 2009
The mainstream media is reporting that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein told his FBI interrogators after his capture that he lied about having weapons of mass destruction (WMD) because he feared Iran. But there’s just one problem with this claim: Saddam Hussein never claimed to have WMD, but , as everybody knows, repeatedly denied that this was so.
This propaganda line had its origins early on following the U.S. invasion of Iraq. David Kay, who early on headed up the CIA’s effort to find WMD, the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), suggested at the time that Saddam had “bluffed” about having WMD in order to deter Iran.
The deception served to absolve the Bush administration of responsibility for having lied about the “threat” by making it seem as though it was reasonable to arrive at that conclusion since Saddam had claimed to possess WMD, even though he did not.
In actual fact, however, far from admitting possession, Iraq repeatedly denied having WMD in the months and years leading up to the invasion.
by Meryl Ann Butler
http://www.opednews.com
July 4, 2009
Former Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney remains in an Israeli prison after the humanitarian aid vessel she was a passenger on was captured by Israeli Occupation Forces. The ship was bringing suitcases of crayons for children, medicine for the ill and dying in Gaza, and bags of cement for reconstruction.
Twenty-one on board the Spirit of Humanity were abducted, including Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire, who said by phone that there were several injuries sustained. She is now on a hunger strike in prison, in support of the people of Gaza. Both she and McKinney have been able to make infrequent cell calls.
If this kind of naval piracy involving another POTUS candidate had happened in Somalia, or North Korea, or Iran, one expects that there would have been a frenzied response: statements by our Secretary of State, by our President, and Navy seals and helicopters swarming the area, and non-stop news coverage until the kidnapped Americans were rescued.
[…]
via OpEdNews » Former POTUS candidate celebrates Independence Day in Israeli Prison
h/t: Anita Stewart
see
Interview from a kidnapped passenger, Adie Mormech – Prison Cell, Givon Jail, Ramle, Israel
Cynthia McKinney – Prisoner 88794 call Day 2 from Prison (+ transcript)
UN Expert denounces seizure of aid boat by Israeli forces
Another Example of U.S. Censorship of Mainstream Media By Timothy V. Gatto
presstv2009
July 04, 2009
The international atomic energy agency has formally appointed Yukiya Amano from Japan to be its next Director General. Many are curious to see how this soft-spoken man will hold up considering the polarizing issues facing the Agency. Amano has already said he sees NO solid evidence on Iran seeking nuclear weapons. Press TV’s Margaret Childs has the details from Vienna.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
see
Israeli ambassador to US: Iranian nuke could wipe off Israel in seconds
By Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
July 4, 2009
The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and well-being. — Emma Goldman
One of the reasons, in my opinion, that so many people are ready, willing, able and yes, eager to succumb to “hope,” is because most of us believe that true change is not possible.
In our heart of hearts, do we really think that Obama is an agent of change for the people? Have we not been fooled, yet again? So, we lay all of our hopes and dreams for a better life on one person and allow the inevitable heartache of betrayal to wash over us and once again drown us in disappointment when that person turns out to be just another politician. Politicians just act like politicians because we always let them.
Written by Free Gaza Team
Saturday, 04 July 2009 09:45
Adie Mormech, one of over 21 human rights workers and crew taken prisoner on Tuesday 30th June when their boat was forcibly boarded by the Israeli navy, has spoken by mobile phone from his prison cell at Givon jail, Ramle, near Tel Aviv.
Amongst the other prisoners from the Free Gaza Movement boat, Spirit of Humanity, are Nobel Peace prize winner, Mairead Maguire, and former US Congresswoman, Cythnia McKinney. A message from McKinney on 2nd July condemned Israel for its “illegal” action in “dismantl[ing] our navigation equipment” and confiscating both the ship and its cargo of medical aid, childrens’ toys and olive trees. Continue reading
Updated: August 16, 2009
Propaganda Alert
compiled by Cem Ertür
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
30 June 2009
1) Israeli ambassador to US: Obama’s end-of-the-year deadline to Iran has been moved up to September (16 August 2009)
2) Israeli ambassador to US: Iranian nuke could wipe off Israel in seconds (4 July 2009)
3) Israeli army to train overseas for Iran strike operation (5 July 2009)
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http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0908/16/fzgps.01.html
excerpt from: Interview With Israeli Ambassador to United States
CNN web site, 16 August 2009
[W]e were greatly comforted during the [Israeli] prime minister’s visit here in May, when the [US] president told the [Israeli] prime minister that there would be a serious reassessment of the engagement policy before the end of the year.
And we are further reassured now that that end-of-the-year deadline has been moved up to September. We actually have a date when it’s going to occur.
We are comforted by the fact that the [Obama] administration, in the aftermath of recent events in Iran, has exhibited greater willingness to consider formulating a package of serious sanctions against Iran, even now in advance of the reassessment.
[Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” interview, 16 August 2009]
video link:
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www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097673.html
excerpt from: ‘Iran nuke could wipe Israel off map in seconds’
Haaretz, 4 July 2009
Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, on Friday warned that an Iranian atomic bomb could “wipe Israel off the map in a matter of seconds,” and that the Iranians could “accomplish in a matter of seconds what they denied Hitler did, and kill 6 million Jews, literally.”
Oren made his comments in a conversation with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado.
The newly appointed ambassador warned, “There are clocks ticking all around,” with regard to the Iranian nuclear issue. “One of those clocks is the uranium enrichment clock, which will show that by a certain date the Iranians will have sufficient, highly enriched uranium materials to create a bomb that could literally wipe Israel off the map in a matter of seconds.”
by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
4 July 2009
OK, so nearly 12 years after he was indicted for his alleged part in the African embassy bombings in August 1998, over six years since he was seized after a gunfight in Gujrat, Pakistan in July 2004, and four years after his transfer to Guantánamo — after two years in secret CIA prisons, where, he says, he was “a victim of the cruel ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’” — Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian and one of 14 supposedly “high-value detainees” transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006, will face a trial in a federal court in New York. On Thursday, Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan set a date of September 13, 2010 for his trial to begin.
A courtroom sketch of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, by Christine Cornell, at his arraignment in New York on June 9, 2009.
by Daniel N. White
Review of Richard C. Cook‘s book, Challenger Revealed
Featured Writers, Dandelion Salad
richardccook.com
July 4, 2009
I picked up Richard Cook’s Challenger Revealed without expecting too much from it. I’ve never thought that the writing on the space program was either that interesting or well done from the technical side, and on the political/sociological side it mostly all has been P.R. I also had my doubts that anything much worth reading was ever going to get written about as preventable a disaster as the Challenger loss was, particularly this many years on. On reading it, I was greatly surprised. Not just surprised, but shocked, infuriated, stunned, and inspired. Challenger Revealed is one of the best books on the present condition of the American nation’s current social and institutional sicknesses and failures that I’ve come across ever. It has been criminally ignored by the newsmedia and the literary community and it needs reading by every patriotic citizen of this country who is concerned with its present ailments and future prospects.
Dandelion Salad 