Whoops

I did not watch the State of the Union Address because I don't need a Talking Turd to tell me what the state of the Union is. Anyone who hasn't figured that out should put an ad in the Pet Rock Personals section of his local paper.

State of the Union speeches aren't very important anyway. Originally conceived as a kind of accountability-accounting of national accounts, it became in the last hundred years or so a form of political tone setting -- somewhat like the Queen's Speech, only delivered by boors.

There is nothing particularly wrong with political toning. In fact, it does serve to identify the particular obsession, lunacy or idiocy that animates a Chief Magistrate. The Caesars engaged in political toning, only they were much more succinct and graphic about it. Upon acceding to the imperial curule, they would "indicate" a tutelary deity. When the Empire was beset by economic difficulties and lots of illegal immigration by Uncouth Blonds, Diocletian, not surprisingly, chose Hercules as his Guiding Light or Club as the case might be. Nero, chose pretty boy Apollo and, if I am not mistaken, Julius Gaius chose Venus. Everyone one knows the story about how Constantine changed tutelary deities in mid-battle, as a result of which we all now eat the Bread of Christ in lieu of Mithra's Pomegranate or whatever his holy food was. Problems only arose when emperors "indicated" that they were their own tutelary deity ... as when Caligula became convinced that he was the very incarnation of Zeus. Otherwise, it was an efficient "political toning" system that saved a lot shouting from the Rostra. Alas, this system would hardly work in the United States. Given that all our Chief Magistrates have chosen to accept Jesus as their titular god.

For all that, getting a general indication of a president's "agenda" for the year wasn't particularly obnoxious either. However, beginning with Reagan, the State of the Union became the occasion for a lot of cheap and meaningless rabble-rousing. It was then, that I first noticed how the flotsam in Congress passed over from applauding to whooping and whistling. And not only when Reagan fed them some ear-candy, but even as He walked into The Well. "This is undignified," I thought.

Ever since then the State of the Union Address has gotten progressively more vulgar, loud, crude, and just plain hysterical. It has become, in fact, an Orwellian Hour of Adulation -- a mindless orgy of Whoops, Yelps, Shrieking and Foot Stompings and Furious Clapping. Apes and Chimps on a rampage.

Ever haling proudly, we broadcast this disgrace throughtout the world, convinced that this proves to all the alien unfortunates what a "vibrant democracy" we have. What it in fact shows, is that our Congress has surpassed the Roman Senate in degenerate, stupid, mindless, adulation of tyrants. As Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush walk down the aisle these moronic sychophants stumble over one another to reach out for a handshake or even a look or a smile in their direction. And so I was not surprised when a friend called to say that during the Talking Turd's latest address the congressoids were all but standing chairs.

Ah! This is terrible! Our representatives reduced to standing on chairs to express the legislative ecstasy. We need to pass a bill to authorize the installation of rings, swings and trampolines. Democracy demands no less.

©WCG, 2008
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The Times Makes Light of Desperation

The [N]ew York Times continued it’s truly vile reporting on Gaza with an article by Steven Erlanger which began by stating that Egypt had moved to “restore” its border with Gaza after “Palestinians used a bulldozer to knock down another portion of the wall, originally built by Israel just inside Gaza, to continue their shopping spree.”

Shopping spree??? SHOPPING SPREE??? Is that what Erlanger thinks you do when you are starving? Are we to suppose that Erlanger would characterize 12 year old “ghetto rats” who “breached” the “security barrier” around the “Jew-Enclave” of Warsaw as going on a “shopping spree” for potatoes? Oh... I forgot...those shoppers were Innocent Jews, these untermenschen are filthy Arabs.

Actually there is no difference. Cutting off heat in the winter, cutting off electricity and water, restricting medical supplies and reducing food rations to just above starvation is a crime against humanity -- any humanity -- and that includes anyone. Period. Erlanger’s quip about “shopping spree” was just the sort of cynical, contemptuous, humour one might have expected from the moral cadavers that ran the concentration camps.

Let’s get certain facts straight. Facts that even the Spew York Times can’t quite bury. As commented on this blog in October, the initial “sealing off” of Gaza did not just involve electricity blackouts but extended to food. Even innocent Israel didn’t deny it, proving its magnanimity by saying it would “allow in the minimum amount of food and medicines necessary to avoid a humanitarian crisis”

Avoid a crisis? How many calories does that require? 2,000? 1600 Non-German Rations? A “Jew Ration” of 800? It’s all so deja jew -- aint that right Stevie?

The US press, which gives comfortable berth to scrivner punks like Erlanger, has consistently sought to sanitize Israel’s crimes under international law and has become a mere fart horn for the Israeli Thug State. It glosses over Israel’s illegal acts, it consistently harps (in misleadingly vague terms) about so-called “missle attacks on Israel” and routinely refers to the blockade of Gaza as involving mere “power cuts”. Typically enough Erlanger’s spew talked about “the economic squeeze on Hamas, which intensified last week when Israel decided to cut off shipments into Gaza, including fuel for the local power plant, in response to rocket attacks from Gaza.” Ah.... well then... it’s not so bad... It’s just an “economic squeeze” on "Hamas" in an ever so restrained response against TERRORIST ROCKET attacks on Israel.

The whole world except the spew fed chicken-public in the US understands that Israel is seeking to “degrade” the quality of life of Gazans to sub-basic levels.

As reported by the Guardian “Gaza goes hungry as Israeli sanctions bite”

“http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2189543,00.html

“According to a World Bank report issued last month: "Gaza's economic backbone and private sector vitality risks collapse if the current situation ... continues." The report states that 90% of Gaza's industrial production has ceased and agricultural output has fallen by 50% in 2007

“The Israeli sanctions are affecting every level of Gazan society. Farmers have been particularly hard hit as they have been barred from exporting their products and denied pesticides and fertiliser by Israel, which makes it impossible to plant for next year

“Spare parts for water pumps and other equipment are also barred

“It is reducing the amount of food going into Gaza every week as it tries to exert more pressure on the population to bring about political change.”

Let me repeat that for thug pimps like Erlanger... Thug Staat Israel is:

REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF FOOD .... in order to EXERT MORE PRESSURE ON THE POPULATION. ....

In order for “pressure” to work it has to hurt. After all, no one was pressured into making concessions by baskets of brioche. And when reduced amounts of food “hurt” we call it hunger and starvation. In other words, Israel is engaged in precisely what international forbids: the collective starving of civilians in order to get them to surrender, or otherwise do what you want. It’s kinda like “area bombing”.

Back last Fall, the International Herald Tribune reported:

"The international aid group Oxfam International has warned that 225,000 Gazans could soon suffer from inadequate water supplies because of the fuel shortage, raising concerns for public health.

"With exports and most imports halted, factories have closed, construction has halted and store shelves are empty. Government officials believe the poverty rate has jumped to 75 percent, up from 65 percent from last summer."

http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=8618265

Let me repeat that for Spew York Times douchebags like Erlanger

SUFFER FROM INADEQUATE WATER SUPPLIES / STORE SHELVES ARE EMPTY

No doubt Erlanger, stuffed and slothed by post-war fats thinks that this refers to a run on truffles at Bloomies. Not.

Just this past week, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, condemned the crisis Israel had instigated in Gaza, stating that “If this situation endures, the closure will also cause further shortages of food, medical and relief items in the Gaza Strip,” He called on Israel to “refrain from actions that will harm the well-being of the general civilian population in Gaza.”

FURTHER SHORTAGES OF FOOD.... got that Steve?

As Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak, insisted that Gazans were starving, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, John Holmes, sounded the alarm about the impact of the closure of crossing points on the already “extremely worrying and fragile” humanitarian situation in Gaza. The crossings are “the lifeline for the delivery of humanitarian assistance and other goods into Gaza,” Holmes said, and the closure will result in even greater shortages of food items, medical goods, among other relief supplies and basic daily necessities.

But in what surely qualifies for a cameo scene in one of the genocide soaps Hollywood churns out, the Guardian reported that

“The Israeli army is micro-managing the sanctions to ensure that it cannot be accused of starving Gaza. In a daily communique to international organisations, the army proclaims: "No Humanitarian Crisis in the Gaza Strip - No Hunger in the Palestinian Territories", before it lists the number of days of food it estimates that Gaza has."

Ah yes:

Welcome to Theresienstadt, where you will be well cared for. There is no starvation in Theresienstadt. You will be well cared for... And everyone will receive FULL RATIONS , as decreed by the Reich Government!!

As the Guardian noted,

"But dry statistics hide thousands of stories of misery."

While the humanitarian Israeli Army is “managing” the situation to insure -- most critically -- that it can’t be accused of what it is doing to bring stomach pressure to bear, David Welch, one of the pieces of shit that have gotten stuck into the US Government, blamed the “border crossings” on Hamas’s `illegal actions in Gaza, their unwillingness to behave in a responsible manner.”

Wringing its hands and joining in the woe-fest, Israel's government said it was concerned that militants would use the breach in the border fence to bring arms and terrorists into Gaza. “We have real concerns that they can now freely smuggle explosives, missiles and people into Gaza, which makes an already bad situation even worse,'' Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Aryeh Mekel “Egypt should take care of the problem.''

The hypocrisy is beyond belief but not beyond outrage. Jesus forgave almost every sin... but hypocrisy infuriated even him.

Conflict and enmity are lamentable facts of human existence. That Jews and Arabs are at war in Palestine is one thing. But, if we have learned anything, in 2000 years of Christian Civilization it is that we can at least seek to mitigate the harm we inflict on civilians and avoid cruel and unusual punishments on even our enemies. Too often the restraint that distinguishes civilization from barbarism has been cast aside, as by Allied terror bombing of German cities and German ethnic cleansing of the so-called eastern territories. If there is a paradigm of what ought not to be done, it is the “rations reduction” of civilians trapped behind walled enclosures. If Israel doesn’t understand that then, it “has remembered everything and learned nothing.”

©WCG, 2008

http://cghs.dadeschools.net/ib_holocaust2001/Ghettoes/diet/diet.htm
http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/AxisRule1944-2.htm#Feeding
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The Sheer Outrage of Ignoring Jews

As Israeli-starved Gazans stampeded into Egypt to buy desperately needed foodstuffs, the self-appointed Council of German Jews vociferated its indignation and “outrage” that a Munich carnival had been scheduled for what Jewish organizations have unilaterally decreed to be “International Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

The Council seems oblivious to the fact that except in its own mind there is no such thing as an International Holocaust Rembrance Day. It is not an official holiday in Germany nor in most of the rest of the world. No doubt the Council will labor ceaselessly to rectify that failure and to insure collective self-abasement by everyone else to the unsurpassable uniqueness of Jewish suffering. But until then, the Council is simply being "uniquely insensitive" to other peoples' happiness.

Personally I find the Jewish Council’s action outrageously hypocritical. The dead are gone. If we are to be about remembering, christian faith requires us to relieve and console the present sufferings of others. Indeed, the Old Testament itself commanded no less. But to hell with Jesus, Jeremiah or Isaiah. In the Council’s imperious view we are all to heap ashes on ourselves and dedicate ourselves to remembering past Jewish suffering while present-day Jews inflict collective hunger and privation on civilians in complete violation of humanitarian international law.

©WCG, 2008

ElagabaBush goes to the Holy Land.

In the annals of imperial demise there is always a point at which farce begins to overtake tragedy. What could be more inane than the image of Romulus Augustulus training his pet-chickens as the 1000 year empire he nominally headed crumbled into irrelevance at Odovacer’s feet?

But even before that farcical last act, the Roman Empire was, with ever greater frequency, slipping into and out of folly. Hardly less inane than l’empereur des poules, was the emperor Elagabalus who quite literally backed his rump onto his throne as he grovelled before a huge black phallus dragged through the streets of Rome.

For some reason, the imperial Bimbo’s trip to the Middle East makes one think of Elagabalus... or maybe Romulus Augustulus... or maybe just one of the last idiot Merovignian kings of France.

Amid the now familiar panoply of advance teams, jumbo jets, back up jets, decoys, limo-transports, post-teams, legions of guards, legions of walkie-talkies and legions of undercover agents whispering into felafels, Bush flew to the Holy Land to bring peace to the Middle East in his term. Anyone who believes this nonesense ought to be committed to wherever they sent Louis le Fou. In fact, anyone who reports this nonesense with a straight face ought to be shot pro bono publico.

Despite the trappings, Bush’s lap dog status was revealed and underscored by the lavish and obsequious flattery with which Olmert all but smothered his guest. The more Olmert praised and thanked Bush the more it become obvious that he was desperately trying to cover the fact that it was he who dictated what’s what to the object of his flattery. But the facts betrayed the game. Every item and condition and limitation on the Israeli agenda ended up getting mouthed by Bush, so that despite the imperial fol de rol, Bush played Blair to Olmert’s Bush.

(By the way.... where was Tony ....? Hadn’t he been given some very important mission to bring peace to Palestine?)

Who knows.... In any case, the fact is that peace will not be brought to the Middle East, nor less to the Holy Land, by Bush or by any US president so long as the United States continues to let AIPAC and Israel dictate policy. In addition to bankrolling Israel’s defense, the US all but acts as apologist and agent for Israel in the Security Council. Bush is the most blindly pro-Israel president ever and has since endorsed the ghetto-ization of the West Bank. Behind Bush’s so called “push for peace” is a de facto aquiesence in the long term Israeli push for colonization. It doesn’t get simpler or truer than that.

Now, in addition to steppinfechin’ Israel’s “domestic” policies, Bimbush let it be known that he was hop to-ing Israel’s regional policies. It would be comedic were it not so fraught with direful potential for human misery. As Bush thundered from the parapets of Jerusalem against Iran for continuing with its nuclear energy program, the president’s erstwhile ami du jour, Nicky Sarko, was in the United Arab Emirates firming up a deal to sell them the technology and where-withall to build their own nucular energy plants. Of course not a peep from the US mudia.

Again, hardly a peep from the US mudia or congressional AIPACoids as Israel tested a long range (4,500 km) nuke-capable missile within but days after Bush blasted Iran for destabilizing the region and exhorted his Arab hosts to join in the crusade (?) against the Infidel --X that -- Shiite Persian. All that was needed to round out the farce was for Bush to urge his oil-pals to recall their heroic ancestors at Thermopylae.

Rather than report on the fundamental contradictions underlying ElagabaBush’s sejour in the Near East, worthies such as the New York Times dedicated full story coverage to the peregrine aspects of the imperial tour, reporting in all but hushed tones that, after listening to a cantor sing prayers for the dead, Bush emerged from Israel’s Genocide Memorial with tears in his eyes asking mommy Rice why we hadn’t “bombed Auschwitz.” The Times then went on to report on Bush’s wide eyed pilgrimage (his word) to the Sea of Galilee. Yawn.

In an apparent effort to make up for lack of reportorial substance, the Times hired smirking Bill Kristol as a resident pontificator. But none of this did much to clue in the US chicken-public, which was by and large (plus ça change) left to draw the conclusion that their leader was making a last, if desperate, effort to bring peace to those people over there. As reported by Reuters, the Arab press saw it all quite differently:

The Lebanese daily As-Safir: :

"The explicit aim of the lame duck visit to the region is to foster hatred for Iran among Arab countries ... and to urge them to stand together with Israel against what the American president calls 'terrorism' -- as if there was anything more dangerous for the region than Israeli terrorism."

United Arab Emirates daily Khaleej Times:

"Just as the Gulf countries have healthy relations with the West, including the US, they also have historical, cultural and economic ties with Iran. The UAE happens to be Iran's biggest trading partner. This is why the UAE and other Gulf countries wouldn't want any more confrontation and conflict between the US and Iran."

The Syrian daily As-Sawra :

"This is a new chapter in the series of lies that has characterized the Bush administration. He wants us to believe that he seeks peace and that Iran, and not Israel, is the danger. America does not want peace for the Arabs, but rather their surrender. It doesn't seek democracy but the control of the whole region. "

The Cairo weekly Al-Ahram :

"The positions Bush expressed in interviews with major Israeli television channels and newspapers last Friday are even more shocking than Israeli actions on the eve of his visit. They mark a clear regression from the stances Bush declared in his opening speech at the Annapolis meeting."

Such opinions do not come from the “terrorist” presses of Hezbollah or the Muslim Brotherhood, but from established and government-allowed papers. The palpable anger and disgust must thus be viewed as semi-official if not completely official reactions. But the US chicken-public will hear little of that. What they will hear is arguments from the likes of smirking Billy Kristol and the scrivener drones in Albrecht’s Enterprise Institute, to the effect that this rag-head hostility is all the more reason why we should hug up and hold tight with “our only ally” Israel.

And the sad thing is that most of the chicken-public will believe it and none of the cowards in Congress will gainsay it until lurching from folly to disaster to catastrophe the US finally goes the way of Romulus Augustulus.

©WCG, 2008
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Disrespect, Ingratitude and Blasphemy

Once again, the New York Times proves that it is no stranger to insulting bad taste and astonishing cheek. Reporting on Bush’s mawk-o-rama tour of Holy Land holy sites, Times reporters, Steven Erlanger and Steven Meyers, adopted a respectful factuality when recounting Bimbo’s “emotional” and tearful visit to Yad Vashem. Bush, they wrote, called the experience a “... a sobering reminder that evil exists... “ as he “laid a wreath and lighted a torch as a cantor sang the Jewish prayer for the dead...” etc. etc.

But when it came to Bush’s wide eyed tour at the Sea of Galilee, Erlanger and Meyers could no longer contain their snide juices. Bush, they wrote, “... walk[ed] out onto a pier with two friars in brown robes, who pointed toward the spot where Jesus is said to have walked on the water, according to pool reports.” Pool reports. Cute. Apparently respect for other people’s religions doesn’t matter much outside of Yad Vashem.

(By the way, friars in brown robes are known as Franciscans; not that anyone at the Times knows or gives a shit about such alien distinctions. )

The Erlanger & Meyers article then went on to complain about the cost of Bush’s trip. Noting that Jerusalem had been under virtual lock-down during the Bush visit, the intrepid Times reporters groused that “ Israeli taxpayers spent about $25,000 for every hour that Mr. Bush was in the country for security expenses, not counting the loss of business.”

Oh the lost business!!! The humanity!!! We can hardly go on...

It’s beyond belief. Israel could hardly survive without US financial, military and diplomatic support. Billions of US taxpayer dollars are forked out to Israel in loan guarantees and grants. Military hardware and intelligence is shared. The US all but acts as apologist and agent for Israel in the Security Council. Bush is the most blindly pro-Israel president ever. He has endorsed the ghettoization of the West Bank (“contiguity”) and behind his so called “push for peace” is a de facto aquiesence in the long term Israeli push for colonization.

Erlanger and Meyers are lucky most other Americans are too damn stupid to realize when they’ve been mule-kicked in the butt.

But the Oscar for impudence must certainly go to those settlor Jews who paraded about Jerusalem carrying placards that read: “Bush Read Your Bible ... G-d gave Israel to the Jews.”

Now, Jews are wont to use the term “G-d” as a humble indication of the too awful, too great, too far-beyond anything we can fathom divinity of the unutterable Creator and Ruler of all that is.... It is the English version of FWRTKL or whatever H-'s unpronounceable name is. Yeah...but not so damn humble to tell us what He did, does, wants and deeds title to.

“G-d” my ass; and I know that there are sincere and devout orthodox Jews who would agree that such hypocrisy merits nothing but contemptuous disgust.

©WCG, 2008

Neo Blasphemy

With a wizardry befitting medieval alchemy, Jewish and Zionist groups have long labored to turn criticism of anything jewish or zionist into a sign of anti-semitism, using the shrill cry of “persecution!” to silence political opposition and even cultural preferences.

And so, one had to reach for the salt, when Haaretz reported (18 XI 07) that Jewish groups in Holland had monitored a 64% rise in anti semitic “attacks”. The article explained that of the 261 “attacks” six or seven involved actual violence. According to the group’s report, the “The research focused only on unmistakably anti-Semitic incidents and remarks.” However, included in “unmistakably” was mail, addressed to Jewish groups, that “accused them of acting like Nazis because of Israel's actions.” In that case, a spokesman said, “we considered these mails to be anti-Semitic.”

The unstated premise of this demonology is that Jews are incapable of acting like Nazis -- which is why saying that they do can only be regarded (so it is said) as an unfounded insult inspired by personal hatred. The theological kernel in the premise is thus that Nazis are that than which nothing more evil can be conceived -- i.e. they be the deebils!

Of course, this is utter nonsense. A more scientific appraisal would begin with the fact that Germans and Jews, cowboys and indians are, like the rest of us, human beings, everyone of whom is capable of both good and evil. As such, inter-group behavioral comparisons are entirely reasonable. The comparison between Nazi and Zionist pseudo racial ideologies, has long been noted. It is hardly difficult to fathom. Both ideologies aimed to preserve a given ethno-cultural identity while annexing territory and “segregating out” the local population. The rhetoric used by both ideologies has at times been indistinguishable.

“The source of national feeling ...lies in a man's blood ...in his racio-physico type and in that alone. ...For that reason we do not believe in spiritual assimilation. It is inconceivable, from the physical point of view, that a Jew born to a family of pure Jewish blood can become adapted to the spiritual outlook of a German or a Frenchman.”

Hitler? Nein. Vladimir Jabotinsky, one of the founders of zionism. (Iron Wall, (1925).) Jabotinsky founded that current of zionism whose political descendant today is represented by the Likud Party. Jabotinsky was equally blunt about the “colonization” of Palestine,

“All colonization, even the most restricted, must continue in defiance of the will of the native population. Therefore, it can continue and develop only under the shield of force which comprises an Iron Wall through which the local population can never break through. This is our Arab policy. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy.” (Op. cit.)

It hardly requires a great mental exertion to see the evident similarities. On the contrary, what requires exertion is the hypocrisy and obscurantism which currently passes for zionist apologetics.

Of course, there is no single variant of zionism just as there was no single variant of national socialism. Political movements are by nature created by a consensus that embraces even inconsistent policies under one umbrella. On the other hand, there is always the pudding ... the net outcome on the ground, so to speak. And it is quite legitimate to compare the Nazi and Israeli puddings on the ground.

On those occasions when Israel’s avid supporters leave off name calling and join the issue on the merits, they invariably point to the “fact” that Israel has not “gassed six million Palestinians in factories of death.” This is said in such tones as to indicate that the speaker believes it to be the piece de difference. Q.E.D. Ergo non nobis and it is “pure” anti-semitism to “even attempt” to make the comparison. But to assert as much is simply to state the demonological premise in another fashion. If “gassing six millions in factories of death” is the touchstone, then comparison is a fortiori impossible.

However, it is not “gassing” that’s the key, but policies of oppression including “genocide.” Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jew who coined the word “genocide” and who made a detailed study of Nazi policies in the occupied territories never mentioned “gassing.” In his view, mass murder was only one of several different types of graduated policies which comprised genocide. Equally important and often-times as effective were: economic embargoes, cultural embarrassments, denial of essential social services, segregations and starvation. In fact, untold millions died of death-through-labor in Stalinist work-camps; and such a fatally punitive regimen when applied to a single ethnic group would count as genocide just as much (albeit with infinitely more personal pain and suffering along the way) as shooting and gassing.

Far from being “beyond the pale” comparing historical facts on the ground -- let the pudding fall where it may -- is the only way to learn from history. Anything else is touhou bouhou.

Stupidly enough, there are those who use the “fascist” and “nazi” as an epithet signifying some ill-defined form of police state or oppressiveness. Used as such, the term reflects that the speaker has perceived that one party has his boot on the neck of the other. While that perception may not be articulated in detail or with the great learning, for all that it is not necessarily inaccurate. No less than apes and dogs detect injustice even if they can’t explain it very well. A scientific or Socratic approach would be to elicit, step by step, what it is the speaker means to say and to test it for veracity.

But that is not what the zionist cabals are about. What they are about is stifling debate and intimidating criticism. In a recent interview given to Wajahat Ali, Norman Finklestein put it thus,

“Whenever Israel comes under international pressure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict diplomatically or on account of its human rights violations, it revives the extravaganza called The New Anti-Semitism. In 1974 the Anti-Defamation League, an Israel lobby group in the U.S., put out a book called The New Anti-Semitism and in 1981 it put out another book called The Real Anti-Semitism. Right after the new intifada began, the Israel lobby again started with The New Anti-Semitism. The purposes of this agitprop are pretty obvious: to delegitimize all criticism of Israel as motivated by anti-Semitism and to turn the perpetrators into the victims. It seems to have less effect in recent years due to overuse: once you start calling Jimmy Carter an anti-Semite, people really begin to wonder.”

Yes... even Man eventually begins to wonder.

©WCG, 2007

Finklestein Interview
http://www.counterpunch.org/ali11202007.html

Jabotinsky quotes, cited in Leni Brenner “Zionism in the Age of Dictators” (1983)
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/index.htm
http://aaargh-international.org
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When Puppets get Puppity.

It was all kind of funny... Pakistan’s general gone mufti re-attached his shoulder boards, sacked n’ stacked his supreme court and suspended elections all -- he insisted -- in order to protect his eight year long “transition to democracy” against assorted terrorist threats.

Anticipating the anguished howl that indeed hit the heavens over Washington, Musharaff was ready with a bunch of handy quotes from Saint Lincoln.

“I would at this time, Musharraf said, “venture to read out an excerpt of President Abraham Lincoln, specially to all my listeners in the United States. As an idealist, Abraham Lincoln had one consuming passion during that time of crisis, and this was to preserve the Union… towards that end, he broke laws, he violated the Constitution, he usurped arbitrary power, he trampled individual liberties.

"His justification was necessity and explaining his sweeping violation of Constitutional limits he wrote in a letter in 1864, and I quote, ‘My oath to preserve the Constitution imposed on me the duty of preserving by every indispensable means that government, that Nation of which the Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the Nation and yet preserve the Constitution?’”

Musharraf went on to quote Lincoln, as political surgeon:

“By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save life but a life is never wisely given to save a life.”

Mussolini couldn't have said it better.

Leaping forward, Musharraf took a page from President Nixon and groused about an “activist judiciary” that was bringing the nation to wrack and ruin.

What Musharraf most likely did not know was that somewhere between 25% to 33% of listeners in the United States still consider “the Original Gorilla” to have been a bloody tyrant. And with good reason. Lincoln subverted the rule of law and for much the same reasons invoked by all state idolaters .

In the 1864 letter from which Musharraf quoted, written but ten days before his assassination, Lincoln expressed his conviction that his oath to “preserve the constitution” was really an oath “to preserve that nation of which the Constitution was the organic law.” By that handy-dandy inversion Lincoln could justify violating the Constitution he had sworn not to violate.

The appeal to “the Nation” or “das Volk” or “the Motherland” is always the same. It is the Golden Calf for which tyrants everywhere justify their violation of law. And if laws can be overridden in order to protect the ultimate, supreme good of "the State"... who is a mere limb to complain when he is sacrificed on doctor's orders for the good of the All?

The difficulty with this appeal, at least in so far as the United States is concerned, is that “our nation” is indisputably the creature of the constitution -- not the other way around. Not only are we a nation of laws we are a nation born of constitutional law. Without that birth certificate there is no United States; and that is why the United States is the most quintessentially liberal country ever to have existed. It is the creature of contract.

Musharraf's uppity act was wilder still if it is borne in mind that he merely applied the same raison d’etat that the present administration itself uses to suspend constitutional liberties, and to do away with judicial review: “to protect the Uhmur’can People from turrurism.” The Pakistani leader hardly needed to have gone so far back as Lincoln. He could have quoted Imbecile's nominee for Attorney General, who just the week before informed the Senate that the president was not necessarily bound to observe the law if he determined he was defending the country.

And so, the Administration was reduced to howling an impotent protest against a puppet that was getting all strings tangled by doing what the puppet handler itself was doing with it other hand on another stage.

Damn! They just don’t make puppets like they used to.

©WCG, 2007
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