Anti-War

Judging by developments over the past several weeks, it would appear that nothing going on in Washington matters quite as much as defending Israel no matter what the Jewish state does. The White House and its befuddled leader President Joe Biden are obsessed with every twist and turn of the Israel and media shaped narrative, basing it on two key words “terrorism” and “antisemitism.” It plays out like this: Israel is a victim of terrorism from enemies seeking to destroy it and those who criticize the Israeli “self-defense” response are motivated by nothing less than antisemitism. It is also being claimed ludicrously in Washington that Israel is fully capable of investigating itself if war crimes actually were committed, something that it never has done, note particularly the lack of any follow-up in cases involving the recent killing of American citizens.

NATO What You Need To Know

By MEDEA BENJAMIN and DAVID SWANSON

“An indispensable primer. It can save your life — indeed all of our lives…NATO is a clear and present danger to world peace, a war machine run amok.”

— Jeffrey D. Sachs

“Read this book to understand how NATO promotes a logic of domination, not equality, or justice or peace.”

—Clare Daly, MEP

Identity is fluid, because concepts such as culture, history and collective self-perceptions are never fixed. They are in a constant state of flux and revision. 

 For hundreds of years, the map of the Roman Empire seemed more Mediterranean and, ultimately, Middle Eastern than European - per the geographic, or even geopolitical demarcation of today's Europe. 

 Hundreds of years of conflicts, wars and invasions redefined the Roman identity, splitting it, by the end of the fourth century, between West and East. But, even then, the political lines constantly changed, maps were repeatedly redrawn and identities fittingly redefined. 

Mine! Mine! Mine! Praise God . . .

This is perhaps the worst thing human beings do: They take their deepest values — connection, love, empathy — simplify them down to a religion, a name (Christianity, let us say, or Judaism, or whatever) and suddenly they have a flag to wave and a “cause” to go to war for. And the blood flows. Kill the savages! Kill the non-believers! Kill the enemy! (Take their land.)

Here’s the question of the day, as Israel continues to inflict hell and starvation on Gaza, as brutal conflict and murder rage across the planet: How do we reclaim — and maintain — the integrity of our deepest values? Acting in love and connection with an “Other” is, or can be, remarkably complex; declaring the Other to be an evil being who doesn’t deserve to live not only simplifies things enormously, but allows part of humanity to connect with itself, in fear of that enemy.

Peaceful protest, violent response – that says it all.

Human politics – from global to local – remain mixed with hatred, dominance and . . . well, dehumanization. We’ve organized ourselves across the planet around one primary principle: the existence of an enemy. The division between “us” and “them” can be based on anything: a difference in race, language, culture – or simply a difference of opinion, which is beginning to happen on campuses across the country, as peaceful, intensely determined protesters, demanding their institutions divest from the Israeli war machine, face violent resistance from police and/or counter-protesters.

The mass protests at dozens of US universities cannot be reduced to a stifling and misleading conversation about antisemitism. 

 Thousands of American students across the country are not protesting, risking their own futures and very safety, because of some pathological hate for the Jewish people. They are doing so in a complete rejection of, and justifiable outrage over the mass killing carried out by the state of Israel against defenseless Palestinians in Gaza. 

 They are angry because the bloodbath in the Gaza Strip, starting on October 7, is fully funded and backed by the US government. 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”--The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified Dec., 15, 1791.

An open assault on the First Amendment is occurring across America, as college students who are peacefully exercising their Constitutional right to freedom of speech, challenging government policies, are being arrested in droves.

The self-appointed Congressional Overseers of Higher Education, who hauled politically naïve university presidents into their star chambers and publicly castigated the savants for not admonishing their students to be sufficiently sympathetic to genocide, essentially demanded loyalty, not to America, but to the deadly agenda of a country not our own. 

Leading government officials have expressed dismay at the furor which has erupted on campuses and have encouraged the use of repressive tactics. 

The western discourse on the circumstances behind the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 75 years ago, is hardly convincing. 

 Yet, that over-simplified discourse must be examined in order for the current decline of the organization to be appreciated beyond the self-serving politics of NATO’s members. 

 The history records page of the US State Department speaks of the invention of NATO in a language suitable for a US high school history book. 

 "After the destruction of the Second World War, the nations of Europe struggled to rebuild their economies and ensure their security," it reads, which compelled the US to take action: "(integrating) Europe as vital to the prevention of communist expansion across the continent."

One expects that anyone involved in politics will lie whenever they think they can get away with it to burnish one’s own image and while also distorting reality to promote policies that are being favored. Nevertheless, the record of high crimes committed by a series of presidents and their top aides since the so-called “war on terror” began has established a new low for government veracity. One would have thought that the fake intelligence fabricated by a group of Zionists in the Pentagon and White House to launch the misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq would be as bad as it could possibly get, but the Joe Biden team has outdone even those unfortunately unindicted criminals by allowing itself to be maneuvered by friends in NATO and by Israel into situations that are one step short of nuclear war.

When the Washington Post revealed Friday afternoon that “the Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel,” a lot of people cared. Readers of the story posted more than 10,000 comments on its webpage. A leading progressive site for breaking news, Common Dreams, quickly followed up with coverage under a headline that began with the word “obscene.” Responses on social media were swift and strong; a tweet about the Post scoop from our team at RootsAction received more than 600,000 views.