Torture Photos

My guess is the real reason President Obama will not release the torture photos is that they will create such a stir as to discredit the continuation of the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

War and authoritarianism in general creates sadistic sociopaths so the fact that there were rapes is not surprising.  Also in the U.S., it is commonplace for comics to make jokes about prison rapes.  Such cultural norms helps to desensitize people about this problem.

Not only should there be continued pressure to release of the photos but the demand to end all inhumane torture of all prisoners — domestic and international — especially prisoner rape.

U.S. Zionism and the Left

This is a taboo topic on the “Left” and in fact there are many so-called “leftist” who are apologist for Zionism.  One particular is the “oracle of the Left” — Noam Chomsky.  Because the Left is in such a decrepted state, many people hearing Chomsky’s critique of the United States, believe him to be a “radical”.  He is rightly accredited by many activist with introducing them to anti-imperialism ideas but when you really examine his position, Chomsky is much more reactionary than radical.

The focus by the “Left” on “imperialism” has been a way for it to ignore pressing domestic issues most especially rising Zionism in the United States.  Apparently this form of racism is not too pressing for the Left as it tries to explain all the evils in the world for the U.S. desire to “control” oil and other resources.  However, this explanation doesn’t wash when explaining the war on Iraq.

The oil company are on record being against the invasion as they were on record against the first Gulf War.  However the Left seems to be blind to the push for the war here by Zionist groups as well as Zionist sympathizers on the Left who sabotaged the anti-war movement in an effort obscure the influence that Zionism has on the inducing the U.S. to invade Iraq — and now possibly Iran.

For example Naomi Klein’s book “The Shock Doctrine” was written on the premise that the U.S. invaded Iraq in order to ram down the Iraqi people throats Milton Freedman’s like neo-liberal policies.  The irony is that Milton Freedman was against the war on Iraq.

Klein referred to her books as a thesis which by definition means that if you can find one contraction of the thesis means that the thesis is unsupportable.  Apparently Freedman’s lack of support for the war on Iraq breaks down her thesis.  So what was the real purpose of the book?

The current economic crisis makes Klein’s book appear timely but when she wrote the book it was well before the crisis that the purpose of her book was to obscure the role of Zionism’s influence in the war to make it appear that is was a neo-liberal project rather than a neo-conservative (i.e. Zionist) project.

This kind of intellectual deception by the likes of Chomsky and Klein and other members of the “Left” has been extremely deleterious to activist and to building an ideological foundation whereby the Left can build solidarity and trust among the working class.  Klein who herself says that she supports a”mixed” economy and Chomsky who is an admits to being a Zionist and excuses Israeli apartheid and Zionist influence on U.S. “Imperialism”,  rather than use their capabilities to provide economic and political clarity has unfortunately used their abilities to keep well intention activist confused and off-balance.

Tim Russert’s Yellow Journalism

During the Ohio debate, Tim Russert demanded that presidential candidate Barack Obama reject the enforcement of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Russert claimed that the controversial leader referred to Judaism as a “gutter religion”. Clearly this kind of hate speech ought to be rejected but the problem is that Louis Farrakhan never made the remark and therefore Obama, clearly boxed in by Russert, “denounced and rejected” a remark that was never uttered.

Tim Russert, unfortunately, engaged in the lowest form of journalism — race baiting — and it isn’t the first time. Russert did the same thing to Obama in 2006 and demand that he respond to Harry Belefonte harsh criticisms of George W. Bush.

Ironically however the remark attributed to Louis Farrakhan was never uttered by him and therefore Russert and the media are wrong. In 1984, Farrakhan in a gave a speech critical of Israel where he refers to Zionism as a “dirty religion”. It was the New York press that distorted his remarks and created the “gutter religion” canard. Had Russert checked the record he would have discovered the facts.

It is Tim Russert divisive and irresponsible tactics that should be “denounced and rejected” as he sought to fan the flames of hatred rather than accurately report the facts.