It is a seeming admission that the entirety of Israel is situated on historical Palestine, something few Jews care to admit. It is similar to how few Canadians or Americans care to admit that their states are erected on the territory of Indigenous nations. However, Herskovits also writes of Israel’s “44-year long occupation of the Palestinian Territories.” Is it an occupation only of the Palestinian Territories or is it also an occupation of the entirety of historical Palestine? Some may quibble that it is now formally an international state by virtue of United Nations Partition Plan of 1948 and UN General Assembly Resolution 273 (although not ratified by the UN Security Council).² Did the UN have legal right to partition Palestine in the first place? Did the UN act according to moral principles in partitioning Palestine? If not, how can it be at all legitimate? Ratification is secondary to deliberate theft of a land belonging to another. There was no Israel at any time in Palestine.

Herskovits writes that “…this fiction on the American collective mind reflects a conjuncture of causes: the West’s guilt about the Holocaust; the proto-Zionist theology of American evangelical sects; U.S. imperial interests in Middle East oil reserves; and the West’s long-distrust of and contempt for Arabs and Muslims.”

If guilt is called for, should the West’s guilt be confined to one Holocaust? Should the West not feel guilt over the American Holocaust,³ as professor David Stannard calls the genocide wreaked by Europeans on the Original Peoples in the western hemisphere? There are also the genocides in Australia and elsewhere that were perpetrated by Europeans.

Herskovits takes aim at hasbara: “Propaganda produced by Israel and the American Jewish establishment inverts reality.”

She credits “scholars—Arab, Jewish, and other—who challenge the deceptive narratives” for bringing the justice of the Palestinian cause greater exposure, with a focus on Gilbert Achcar and his book, The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives.

Herskovits often writes disparagingly of “pro-Israel zealots, who attribute hostility to Israel in the Arab world not to Israel’s actions, but to Arabs’ hatred of Jews: hatred, they argue, which originated in Islam and flourished with the Arabs’ collaboration with the Nazis during WWII.”

Herskovits is a survivor of human barbarity. The experience guides her:

As someone whose mother and father were murdered in Auschwitz, and who herself survived the Nazis’ barbarous nationalism thanks to the courage of a group of Catholics, Protestants, Communists, and Jews, I find the idea that defending the “Jewish state” supersedes all other human obligations both immoral and senseless. Nothing, not even the Holocaust, justifies Israel’s treatment of Palestinians or the continuing efforts of pro-Israel zealots to show Arabs and Muslims as less than human. Israel and its unconditional supporters are on a path leading to catastrophe not only for Palestinians, but in the not very long run, for Israel itself.

Racism

Referring to Achcar’s The Arabs and the Holocaust, Herskovits argues against the defamation of an entire group of people: “It is only among ‘reactionary and/or fundamentalist pan-Islamists’ that significant anti-Semitism and support for Nazism were found.” What Herskovits does not mention is that Zionists were in league with Nazis.⁴ It does not make right any racism expressed by an out-group, but it is important to note those casting stones are living in glass houses.

From Achcar: “There are more anti-Semites among the Arabs today than among any other population group—for obvious historical reasons.” Activist scholar Noam Chomsky wrote, “Contempt for the Arab population is deeply rooted in Zionist thought.” Arabs are Semites.⁵

Herskovits says “end Israel’s ethnocentrism and expansionism—and Arab anti-Semitism would likely fade away.” First, Herskovits is grounded on human rights; the “ethnocentrism and expansionism” (I would phrase it “racism and colonialism”) must end. However, “anti-Semitism” is an incorrect term, unless it refers to the minority Hebrew-speaking Mizrahi Jews; the more accurate term would be “anti-Jew” if one is referring to prejudice against Jews. However, animus borne of crimes committed against oneself, one’s kin, one’s people/faith is not racism. If a group of marauders stole my money, beat me to a pulp, and burned down my abode, would it not be preposterous afterwards to call me an anti-marauder? Why should the already stigmatized victim be further stigmatized as being racist?

The ADL defines racism thus:

Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics. Racial separatism is the belief, most of the time based on racism, that different races should remain segregated and apart from one another.

This definition would apply to few Arabs; but it definitely applies to most Zionist Jews.⁶

What Arabs — especially, but not confined to, Palestinians — feel is anti-the evil done by Jews; it is not anti-Jew. There is a massive difference. That Jews despise Germans for what the Nazis did to them, does that make them anti-Teutons? Or does it make them anti-the evil done by Nazis? If Jews share the feelings expressed by the holocaust denier, according to Noam Chomsky,⁷ Elie Wiesel

There is a time to love and a time to hate; whoever does not hate when he should does not deserve to love when he should, does not deserve to love when he is able. Perhaps, had we learned to hate more during the years of ordeal, fate itself would have taken fright. The Germans did their best to teach us but we were poor pupils in the discipline of hate. Yet today, even having been deserted by my hate during that fleeting visit to Germany, I cry out with all my heart against silence. Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate–healthy, virile hate–for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German. To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the dead.⁸

then, despite the illogic of his writing⁹ these Jews are guilty of racism because — as should be quite apparent — the sins of the ancestors should not be visited upon the descendants.

Trivializing War Crimes: Whose Suffering Was Greater?

In the documentary, Defamation, Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir depicts how Zionists and the state of Israel use “anti-Semitism” and the Holocaust as themes in sustaining Israel as the Jewish state. In one scene, American Israel Public Affairs Committee head Abe Foxman chides his Ukrainian government hosts.

Shamir narrates: “Foxman is concerned about the Ukrainian government’s comparison of the famine in the Ukraine before World War II with the holocaust.”

Foxman to president Viktor Yuschenko’s special advisor: “One thing that you need to be sensitive about is not to link it [inaudible]… Be careful that it not be played as your genocide, our genocide because that will be counter-productive on all sides.”

The argument smacks of supremacism: that no one may compare their genocide with the genocidet of Jews. Should such a depiction be unassailable especially knowing that the WWII holocaust is not exclusive to Jews and that Jews were not the most numerous victims?¹⁰ Is not the loss of all human life – regardless of ethnicity, religious persuasion, gender, sexuality, etc. – equally deplorable and lamentable?

Sadly, it appears as if Herskovits is making an argument for the supremacy of the victimhood of Jews during the WWII holocaust and denying a role as genocidaires by “pro-Israel ideologues” in her article. Echoing Foxman, Herskovits, by using Achcar as a foil, depicts the Nakba as “fortunately not a genocide, but what we could call an act of ethnic cleansing.”

She further quoted Achcar as saying peace requires

the mutual recognition of the tragedies of each other without putting them on the same plane … because the magnitude of the Holocaust cannot be compared to that of the Nakba… Nevertheless, this does not diminish the importance of what Palestinians have suffered.

Dealing with this excerpt from Foxman-channeling Achcar leaves one feeling perplexed. Let’s examine the assumptions. Do tragedies occupy space on abstract planes? Are genocides, massacres, atrocities to be numerically ordered into some scale of – for want of better language – least evil to evilest? Even if these assumptions hold, Achcar undermines his preceding words by implying that magnitude does not add to or take away from one’s suffering. What does Achcar want to say? Putting the pieces together, it sounds like Achcar is saying: We Arabs are suffering at the hands of Jews, but you Jews suffered more than us.

Herskovits seems torn because next she proffers, “In fact, it is rarely useful to compare the Holocaust and the ordeal of the Palestinians; it does not help us understand the reality of either.”

I would agree with this. Yet, then she carries on with a comparison: “This is not genocide, but what name is there for it?” Herskovits does not immediately answer her question, although she does bring up “ethnic cleansing” later in the essay. It is a comparison that relegates the tragedy experienced by the Other to another “plane” — implicitly below that of genocide. The WWII holocaust is genocide, probably the genocide, in Herskovits’s mind. In Herskovits’ mind, the Nakba does not rise to the “plane” of a genocide.

Is “ethnic cleansing” not genocide?

Three researchers in Jerusalem — Rony Blum, Shira Sagi, and Elihu D. Richter – and Gregory H. Stanton, a research professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention at George Mason University, as well as the founder and president of Genocide Watch tackled the terminology of “ethnic cleansing.”

The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ is used as a euphemism for genocide despite it having no legal status. … Bystanders’ use of the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ signals the lack of will to stop genocide, resulting in huge increases in deaths, and undermines international legal obligations of acknowledging genocide. The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ corrupts observation, interpretation, ethical judgment and decision-making, thereby undermining the aim of public health. Public health should lead the way in expunging the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ from official use. ‘Ethnic cleansing’ bleaches the atrocities of genocide, leading to inaction in preventing current and future genocides.¹¹

Historian Ilan Pappe, in his book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, courageously acknowledged the expulsion of almost 800,000 people, the destruction of 531 villages and 11 urban neighborhoods, and the Zionist atrocities against Palestinians.¹² A question arose, however, if Pappe fudged on the definitional question of genocide.

Pappe wrote, “Ethnic cleansing is not genocide, but it does carry with it atrocious acts of mass killing and butchery.”¹³ Pappe considers 1948 is a “clear cut case, according to informed and scholarly definitions, of ethnic cleansing.”

Writer and activist Gary Zatzman demurs,

Ilan Pappe is one of those who fudges this question. He says what the Zionists do today in Gaza is genocide, but what they did in Mandate Palestine since 1947 and in the West Bank since 1967 was ethnic cleansing. DISINFORMATION ALERT! …

It is ALL genocide. The intention of the Haganah was to genocide the Palestinians. It’s very convenient to say, à la Golda Meir, that the Zionists didn’t think of the Palestinians as a people or nationality, just an inconvenient obstacle. The FACT is they prepared and executed genocide. It doesn’t matter, either, that the Zionists didn’t get all the Palestinians in one fell swoop, but have dragged it out over the last 58 years. It is still genocide. To suggest the survivors of the Judeocide were incapable of such a thing, which seems to be the only substance at the heart of the liberal Zionists’ argument, is utter nonsense. Were these survivors not psychically damaged by what they experienced before they were “liberated”? Such people were the ideal human material to set upon the Palestinians like wild beasts.¹⁴

Article 2 (a,b,c, & d) of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide seems to apply well to the case of 1948 and also today:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin would assuredly recognize 1948 and subsequent actions by Jews as genocide, which he described:

[A] coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.¹⁵

Lemkin saw genocide as two-phased:

[O]ne, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain or upon the territory alone, after removal of the population and the colonization by the oppressor’s own nationals. Lemkin sees “genocide” as a crime against humanity involving myriad actions intended to “destroy or cripple permanently a human group.¹⁶

Herskovits ponders: “One question that bothers many people is how do you explain the cruel behavior of Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians, an indifference to human suffering, the inflicting of suffering. … I think the major reason for that is education.”

Herskovits is a holocaust survivor trying to be open-minded and fair. It doesn’t, or shouldn’t, work because it serves as a diversion with the very genuine and ongoing suffering of the Palestinian people in their homeland at the hands of Zionist Israeli Jews. Instead, it comes across as an attempt to prioritize the suffering of Jews as opposed to the suffering of all others.

Herskovits shows antipathy for violence and sympathy for the victims of violence. She seeks a solution. She posits education. Surely education is important.

However, education must acknowledge the fact that, despite differences in skin color, beliefs, cultural practices, etc. we are all human beings, endowed with equal human rights. History is in the past, and attempting to gain prominence from the elevation of one’s own suffering and the diminishment of the Other’s suffering indicates a moral backwardness. Attempts to reify past events in a group’s history and raise them to a plane above other groups of humanity reveals miseducation. The lessons of history have been unlearned or abused. For what good reason should humans who show mutual respect and equally share the land and resources fight each other? There is no reason that the wrongs committed by our ancestors be repeated by the present generation. Education should teach that violence is anathema and should never be used to solve disputes, for though military victory might evince physical or technological might, it also evinces moral weakness. Humanity must en masse dismantle the infrastructure, language, and media of war and violence everywhere.

1. Annette Herskovits, “Nazism, Zionism, and the Arab World,” Dissident Voice, 21 May 2012.
2. Resolution 273 is contingent upon Israel implementing UNGA Resolution 181 that defines the borders of Israel and Palestine and UNGA Resolution 194 that recognizes the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
3. See David E. Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World (London: Oxford University Press, 1992).
4. See Jews Against Zionism and Anti-Semitism, Melbourne, Australia, Nazi-Zionist Collaboration, (Britain, BAZO-Palestine Solidarity and AZAN in co-operation with JAZA: 1981); Lenni Brenner, “The Zionist Operation Was a Success, the Jewish Patients Died,” Dissident Voice, 31 October 2009.
5. Noam Chomsky, Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and The Palestinians (South End Press Classics, 1983,1999). Chomsky, also wrote, “Anti-Arab racism is, however, so widespread as to be unnoticeable; it is perhaps the only remaining form of racism to be regarded as legitimate.”
6. See Kim Petersen and B.J. Sabri, “Defining Israeli Zionist Racism, Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, & 11, and 12. Dissident Voice, December 2007-January 2008.
7. Quoted in Mickey Z., “Elie Wiesel: Madman or Commissar?” Press Action, 6 June 2004. as saying: “… people like Elie Wiesel were carrying out their usual function of serving Israeli state interests, even to the extent of denying a holocaust, which he regularly does.”
8. Elie Wiesel, Legends of Our Time.
9. What conclusion should one draw from “The Germans did their best to teach us but we were poor pupils in the discipline of hate.” and “Every Jew… should set apart a zone of hate–healthy, virile hate–for … what persists in the German.” It sounds to this writer as if Wiesel said Jews did not learn to hate but that they hate Germans (not Nazis. Imagine the outrage if one wrote Jews instead of Zionists?)
10. The numbers vary among sources. See, for example, “World War II Casualties,” College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, San Francisco State University; “World War 2 Casualty Statistics,” Second World War History; and “Casualties Numbers by Country,” WWII Archives.
11. Rony Blum, Gregory H. Stanton, Shira Sagi and Elihu D. Richter, “‘Ethnic cleansing’ bleaches the atrocities of genocide,” The European Journal of Public Health Advance Access, 18 May 2007: 1-6. See also a critique of Blum et al. by Kim Petersen, “Bleaching the Atrocities of Genocide: Linguistic Honesty is Better with a Clear Conscience,” Dissident Voice, 7 June 2007.
12. Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, (Oneworld Publications, 2006).
13. Pappe, 197.
14. Quoted in Kim Petersen, “Nakba: The Israeli Holocaust Denial,” Dissident Voice, 18 March 2007.
15. Raphael Lemkin, “Genocide.” In Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation — Analysis of Government — Proposals for Redress (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944), 79-95. Available at prevent genocide international.
16. Raphael Lemkin, “Genocide as a Crime under International Law,” American Journal of International Law (1947), 41(1):145-151. Available at prevent genocide international.

To be sure, progressivism demands that LGBTQ share the same rights as every other person, and the United States president’s affirmation of that right is important, but it should be a given — not a sudden, monumental revelation. Yet, even though Obama has tepidly espoused a tenet of progressivism, endorsement of one or two progressivist principles does not make one a progressive.

Obama’s evilism (it’s definitely not lesser) lost (or it should have lost) a while back the support of progressives. When a presidential candidate promises change (and gullible people start to envision an end to warring, an end to torture, an end to incarceration without habeas corpus, and an end to unfair distribution of wealth, and other progressive moves) and carries on with the extremist status quo of warring and neoliberalism, what reaction should one expect from progressives?

Obama does not acknowledge, by deeds, the right of workers to form unions unencumbered — which is vital to ensuring workplace safety, protecting worker rights, and attaining a fair wage for their labor.

Obama does not acknowledge, by deeds, the rights of all humans to have a job — especially a decent paying job that upholds the integrity of labor.

Obama does not acknowledge, by deeds, the right of all citizens to universal, easy access to healthcare whether poor or well off.

Obama does not acknowledge, by deeds, the rights of Afghanis, Iraqis, Iranians, Pakistanis, Syrians, Yemenis, Libyans, and Palestinians to live free from the fear of drone attack and US or US-backed military assault.

Back in the homeland, the president does not acknowledge, by deeds, the rights of citizens to escape the clutches of financial robber barons. His administration has been surveilling the Occupation movement. Whose side is Obama on? He bails out the 1% and he spies on the 99%.

Wealth at any given moment is finite. Imagine if one divides the economic pizza in a crowd of 100 people, and 100 slices are cut. That is one slice for everyone, and everyone should be satisfied, no? However, what if one person grabs 67 slices of pizza and leaves 33 slices for the rest of the people? How will the 99% feel then? It seems very clear to see what would happen. There is a reason why the Occupation movement arose.

While average citizens were being foreclosed and jobs were disappearing, Obama bailed out the 1% with cash — much of it created by the blood, sweat, and tears of working people, and yet he says nothing meaningful about the right of the 99% to have their slice of the economic pie.

Workers cannot even retire secure in the knowledge that they will be provided for in their retirement years under Obama.

Why can Cuba provide free education right through university, universal healthcare, and high employment with poverty constrained? What does the Cuban Revolution know about progressivism and an egalitarian society that stymies Obama and the others who follow the Washington Consensus through its economic collapses, bailouts, and to whichever economic precipice looms next on the dark capitalist horizon?

Anyway, at least gays can now sleep well knowing that the president has drummed up the gumption to say it is okay for them to marry.

The CBC examined support for the monarchy in an interview with John Fraser, master of Massey College at the University of Toronto.¹ Fraser wrote a book, The Secret of the Crown: Canada’s Affair with Royalty. The first question was about the book’s title: “Why Crown and not monarchy?”

A better question is why the assertion of “Canada’s affair with royalty”? There are plenty of polls done in recent years that indicate Canadians are apathetic or opposed to British royalty.²

Fraser replied, “I don’t think monarchy works here. No one talks about the Canadian monarchy and you never hear it, you don’t see it. But the Crown’s all over the place, on all sorts of things, so that seemed to me appropriate.”

The thing is that most Canadians do not see it as a Canadian monarchy but a British monarchy; this better suits monarchists since if Canadians knew the monarch of the UK was also Canada’s head-of-state (and a 2002 poll indicated that only 5 percent of Canadians knew the British monarch was Canada’s head-of-state), likeliest there would be increased pressure to, at least, Canadianize, the institution. A crown, however, merely represents a costly headpiece in the eyes of most people.

Fraser continues, “Also, we don’t really have a monarchy here. If we do I’d call it ‘monarchy lite.’ We’re not weighed down with the burden of court officers and that sort of thing.”

However, Canada is “weighed down” with the burden of paying for lieutenant governors, a governor general, and that sort of thing. Also, every time a monarch visits Canada, the cost is not cheap.³,⁴

Fraser says, “We have a constitutional system that seems to work quite well. It doesn’t weigh heavily on our shoulders.”

Whose shoulders? Try telling that to the Original Peoples who had no input into the British North America Act being forced upon them, who had too little immunity and military power to resist their lands being taken from them, and to resist the further encroachments into their lands today.⁵ The Crown represents an institution complicit in the dispossession of the Original Peoples of Turtle Island. Today, the “reserves” that Original Peoples live on are Crown lands, that is, lands belonging the Crown/state, not the First Nations.⁶

No need to fret over the present queen says Fraser: “She’s just the old lady of the House of Windsor, very faithful and loyal to the mandate and the burden she’s been given.”

Indeed, Elizabeth has the burden of being one of world’s wealthiest women,⁷ the burden of never having to do menial chores such as cleaning toilet bowls, sweeping castle floors, homecooking, etc. However, what kind of argument is that — being “just the old lady” — for having a privileged, foreign, unelected person being a head-of-state outside her own country?

Fraser: “One of the bits of fun about doing the book was looking at what I call the secret history because Canadian historians don’t like acknowledging the sovereigns.”

Why refer to them as “sovereigns” from a Canadian standpoint? Is Canada not a sovereign state?⁸ What kind of purportedly sovereign state allows another sovereign state to supply its sovereign? Is this not a contradiction? Furthermore, why should Canadians, whether historians or non-historians, “like acknowledging the sovereigns”? As for acknowledgement, there are plenty of geographical designations dedicated to the sovereigns, often eliding the designations used by the Original Peoples. For instance, I grew up in the Lekwungen settlement of Camosack that was renamed Fort Victoria (the Fort having since been dropped) after a monarch who never set foot on the soil, a monarch who was caught up in maintaining her empire.⁹ The monarchy is entwined in the history of Turtle Island; the genocide was carried out under the banner of monarchism and imperialism.

Fraser worries “… the monarchy will die if the government doesn’t support it. That’s what was happening, it was dying slowly through unbenign neglect. So the fact that the Harper government respects the monarchy and the Crown and has made sure that it had the right sort of outlets, I think is great.”

What is the reason that the Canadian government should support the monarchy? Is the monarchy deserving of respect? Does Canada support democracy or does it support monarchy? The two ideals are clearly antithetical. The Harper government, though, has abused the monarchy through the queen’s representative in Canada, to undermine democracy. In late 2008, when the three opposition parties planned to form a coalition to bring down the minority Conservative government (which governed as if it were a majority), Harper asked governor general Michaëlle Jean to prorogue parliament, and she assented.¹⁰

Fraser opines that deceased princess Diane’s “biggest bequest is those two boys, who are recognizable, contemporary human beings.”

They are two contemporary human beings born with the proverbial silver spoon in mouth. There are plenty of mothers bequeathing offspring to the world (and these mothers through their generous bequeathing — abetted in equal measure by fathers — are burdening the earth’s carrying capacity, but that is another topic). Why should William and Harry be accorded greater respect or privilege from society than the offspring of non-monarchial mothers? Either a society considers itself committed to genuine democracy and egalitarianism or it can drop the pretence and openly declare itself for class-based, non-democratic institutions.¹¹

The Massey College master holds that because no Canadian can aspire to be the country’s head of state: “It solves a lot of problems for a country like Canada. It removes it from being an issue.”

What wonderful logic. It is a logic that applies equally well to dictatorships, especially familial dictatorships. One would assume that Massey admires how the determination of the head-of-state in North Korea, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia among others is unburdened by the issue.

Fraser says, “It’s very useful to a fractious country to have succession of the formal head of state, which is under a notion of the Crown, solved for us. We don’t have to elect it or whatever.”

Who needs the problem of democracy when monarchy can solve it for us? Fraser seems ignorant or oblivious to the fact that the British (and Canadian) sovereign is a source of friction in Canada because the monarchy represents — to the chagrin or Schadenfreude — for many Canadians the British conquest of the French on Turtle Island.

Fraser asserts, “And the will of the people, in the end, is expressed by the sovereign, because if the vast majority of Canadians chose not to have the Crown, it wouldn’t exist.

That is just blatant assertion. There are just so many instances of “the will of the people” (and one assumes the will of the majority is meant) being disregarded by governments. If what Fraser claims is true, then why not back the bluster with a call to hold a referendum asking Canadians if they prefer the British head-of-state to continue as Canada’s head-of-state?

1. Daniel Schwartz, “Canada and the Crown: John Fraser on Canada’s affair with Royalty,” CBC News, 20 April 2012.
2. The Canadian Press, “Canadians apathetic about monarchy: poll,” CBC News, 28 June 2010.
3. “…C$1.5m (£950,000), excluding security – although that is much less than the $2.5m cost of the Queen’s visit.” Adam Gabbatt and Stephen Bates, “William and Kate visit Canada for canoes, campfires and cookouts,” Guardian, 30 June 2011.
4. The queen and prince’s visit carried a higher estimated cost. Whatever the final cost was, it was not cheap. See Citizens for a Canadian Republic, “Royal visit could cost taxpayers $1M or more per day,” Press release, 1 July 2010.
5. See many articles at “Original Peoples,” The Dominion.
6. “Specific Claim Settlements Involving Land,” Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, Modified 15 September 2010. “A reserve is land that has been set apart for the use and benefit of an Indian [sic] band. … The federal Crown holds the title to reserve lands.” … “Less than 0.2 % of Canada’s land mass, 2.6 million hectares, has reserve status.” This is despite Original peoples being 3.8 % of Canada’s population. “Canada’s aboriginal population tops million mark: StatsCan,” CBC News, 15 January 2008. The Canadian state is attempting to municipalize the reserves and entrench fee-simple land ownership, dangerous to First Nation community interests. See Harley Chingee, “Individual property ownership on reserves,” Turtle Island Native Network, 20 July 2010.
7. Luisa Kroll, “Just How Rich Are Queen Elizabeth And Her Family?,” Forbes, 22 April 2011. “Queen Elizabeth, 85, has an estimated personal net worth of $500 million.” … “The Queen also receives an annual government stipend of $12.9 million.”
8. I refer solely to whether international institutions recognize Canada as sovereign. I do not delve into whether Canada is a legitimate state. Readers can decide for themselves whether conquest can legitimate the dispossession of an Indigenous people.
9. “Queen Victoria,” History.com.
10. “GG agrees to suspend Parliament until January,” CBC News, 4 December 2008.
11. See Kim Petersen, “Elitist, Racist, Religionist, Sexist, Inegalitarian: Canada’s Head-of-State,” Dissident Voice, 4 November 2003.

When the Communists came to power in China, one of their first acts was to abolish the hand-pulled rickshaw. What an irony that in the second decade of the 21st century, the Communist leaders in West Bengal wait for the remaining rickshaw-pullers to die!

– A.J. Philip¹

The Esplanade district is a large commercial area in the heart of Kolkata, India. On a warm February day while heading toward the markets on Lindsay Street, I observed a pair of rickshaw pullers hauling their human cargo along at a brisk trot.

One block over on Sudder Road, where most of the backpackers hang out, sat a wiry bare-foot man wearing a lungi (skirt) and a gumcha (cloth) wrapped around his head. His name is Mohammad Salim. He is a 62-year-old husband and father of six children from Bihar, in the north of India, and he is one of the last rickshaw pullers.

Kolkata is the last place in the world where people earn a living at as what some describe as “human beasts of burden.”

Salim was eager to be interviewed about his job, and his colleague, Mohammad Raju, 35, married with four children, joined in.

During this time of year (February when the interview took place), they said they earned about 100 to 200 Rupees a day ($1C=50 Rupees); on a really good day, they earned 300 Rupees. It cost about 100 Rupees a day to eat, and one can imagine that these men burn many calories a day transporting people and their goods hither and thither.

Rickshaw pulling is a male-only occupation. The pullers laughed when I asked whether a woman might do such work. “It is too dangerous,” they said, not mentioning any physical limitations.

They said their customers are both Indians and tourists. Depending on the trip, they usually charged the Indians about 20 Rupees and the tourists 30-40 Rupees. The price was per trip and not per number of passengers.

It was not uncommon to see two corpulent passengers with many bags of goods being trotted home by the lean rickshaw pullers — like scenes straight out of Aravind Adiga’s, The White Tiger: “thin stick men, leaning forward … bearing a pyramid of middle-class flesh – some fat man with his fat wife and all their shopping bags and groceries.”²

The rickshaw has two large wheels and between there is a simple seat with low backing, about a meter above the ground, where the customers seat themselves with their bags. The rickshaw puller lifts the vehicle by means of two parallel poles an arm’s width apart. Most of the pullers rent their rickshaws. Sadar Ali, 44, from Bargona, Sundarban, is the father of three boys and one girl. He said he rents his rickshaw for 25 Rupees a day from the Salvation Army.

More rickshaw pullers joined our group. They were very forthcoming about the details of their livelihood.

One newcomer, Mohammad Edad, the 58-year-old father of four, told of his longest trips being about 10 kilometers, for which he received about 100-150 Rupees.

Sixty-year-old Firoj from Lashmikantpor said sometimes the bags of passengers would be 20 kilograms.

Because these rickshaw pullers were Muslim, they worked Saturday to Thursday, taking Fridays off. They said the rickshaw pullers were about half Muslim, half Hindus, adding that they all got along well.

Generally, they said other traffic was respectful to the rickshaw pullers, and they plied their trade in the narrow lanes where vehicles have more difficulty maneuvering. The main competition was from the Ambassador taxis.

They said that they would stop pulling a rickshaw if another kind of job was available, but that they were content.

Salim said, “Money makes happy. The only business is money. [I] do it for the money.”

Raju is from Kolkata, where he lives with his family. Salim stays in Kolkata for 4 to 5 months, and then he heads back north to his family in Bihar during the low season.

The best season for working, they all agreed, was monsoon season. Then, the streets are flooded; it is difficult to walk, and cars cannot drive. They indicated by sweeping their hand with palm in-turned that the water level was up to their hips. During this season, they said they made 1000 Rupees a day.

The push is to eliminate rickshaw pulling from the last place on the planet. Without them, however, other jobs will need to be provided for Salim, Raju, and their colleagues, and during monsoon season, people will have to find another way to get to where they are going.

1. “West Bengal’s rickshaw era,” Herald of India.
2. Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger (Noida, India: Harper-Collins, 2009): 27.

What makes bailouts toxic is cronyism, the coming together of government and private wealth, the spectacle of Washington doing special favors for its pals in the investment banks.

– Thomas Frank

The outstanding discovery of recent historical and anthropological research is that man’s economy, as a rule, is submerged in his social relationships.

– Karl Polanyi¹

In What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, author Thomas Frank explored American “democracy” and working Americans puzzling proclivity to vote against their economic best interest, which meant voting for the Republican Party. Frank’s latest book, Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right, segues into the question of how a malfunctioning system that screws the masses manages to perpetuate itself? And why do the masses allow themselves to be screwed by the system?

The economic system is capitalism, and the political system goes hand-in-hand with molly coddling capitalism – even to the extent of bailing it out with a reverse socialism. Here was the hypocritical spectacle of right-wingers who abjure government intervention (favoring instead the rule of the market) dipping into the government coffers to bail themselves out. Frank has a knack for prose; he takes what should be palpable for all and renders it in a highly readable and engrossing fashion. He clearly presents the bailout for the economic rip-off that it was — a rip-off of working people that transferred their hard-earned money to the idle elitist class.

Frank, obviously, is highly critical of neoliberalism and so-called democracy, but unclear is what he leans toward instead. Frank would like more socialism, but would he like socialism as the system? Just how far would he like to deviate from capitalism? As an alternative to the bailout, he mentions nationalization, but does not delve into the pros and cons of a wholesale nationalization. Why?

When the ship of the elitist financial class starts taking on water, why should the common people grab the bails and hand the helm back to the incompetent navigators? This financial shipwreck should have been followed by an unyielding harangue against capitalism, and it should have provided an opening for socialism. Instead, the Right rebounded, and Frank explores how and why.

One major reason why is that the establishment produces a monopoly-media manufactured consent based in the creation and maintenance of its necessary illusions.

Right-wing media “louts” like Glen Beck and Ann Coulter (personages that Frank calls “entrepreneurs of fear”) are given generous space in the monopoly media to vent their petulant bombast while rational arguments presented by thoughtful critics are marginalized or kept out. Thus disinformation and propaganda clogs information channels; the result is myth and lies presented as truth and reality.

Frank exposes much of this, for example, the myth of small business job creation. He skewers the illogic of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, notes how conservatives have mimicked leftist characteristics, and provides “examples of conservatism’s dalliance with error.”

Frank quotes the bathos of George W. Bush: “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.” Certainly it was not an abandonment of moral principles because the “free market” is without such. Nonetheless, how can one abandon the blatant contradiction of there being a “free market”?

Pity the Billionaire captures vignettes of the inversion and perversion of economic reality along with a lack of compassion by those wedded to neoliberalism. As typifying the entitled capitalist and comprador [coordinator] classes, Frank presents business reporter Rick Santelli. Santelli knows who he serves, and he turned his scorn upon the working class “losers”/victims, such as people who lost their homes to foreclosure. The message was: the system was not to blame for extending the loans; the borrowers solely were to blame for losing out.

The Tea Party movement is a collective example of misplaced wrath, but is the Tea Party wrath any more misplaced than the faith of Obama supporters? And who are these Tea Partiers — some of who, Frank tells, wear ascots?

Frank would like voters to steer clear of the Republican Party, but is the Democratic Party the preferred option? Frank fails to explore or create a space for a politics beyond the duopoly, who he well knows is entrenched in serving the interests of the elitist class.

This was a difficult review to write. Frank’s writing really engages the reader. His logic is compelling; however, at times his application of logic is lacking and leaves one feeling unsatisfied.

Consider the following scenario: If you, as a customer, walk into a store and purchase product A and find it highly unsatisfactory, will you buy product A again or buy product B? If after buying product B, and you find that it is also highly unsatisfactory, will you then return to buying product A or will you consider trying product C? Of course I am assuming that rational customers will look for a product which satisfies them. Is there any compelling reason (besides fear, which is not a reason but an emotion) as to why this same logic should not apply to political choices?

What is the Right is quite well understood. In the United States, the Republicans are the Right. However, what is the Left? What is progressivism? Is it the Democrats? Frank does not consider this; he is focused on the mind-set of conservatives who usually reside within the Republican Party.

Does daylight really fall between the duopoly of the Democrats and Republicans? On some social issues like abortion, gun control, and such, yes. However, on economic issues? Barack Obama has demonstrated (as did Bill Clinton before Obama) that neoliberalism is embraced by the political duopoly.

Frank has been highly critical of Obama’s performance as president; however, in a sense, Frank can be criticized as an enabler of Obama. Frank writes “Nothing has changed,” but one can’t help feeling that he fails to nail Obama on his lie of “Change we can believe in.” Readers of Pity the Billionaire can easily sense that voting Republican would be their undoing, but this sense of undoing does not come across as vitally in expression against the Democrats.

Since Pity the Billionaire fails to mention, for example, the Green Party, Ralph Nader, or another “third party” as an alternative to the political duopoly, one might argue that Frank surrenders to the folly of lesser evilism.² The track record of the administrations of the last five US presidents — Ronald Reagan (Republican), George H.W. Bush (Republican), Bill Clinton (Democrat), George W. Bush (Republican), and Barack Obama — has shown no substantial deviation from the neoliberal agenda; if anything, the agenda has become further implemented. Given that the Democrats and Republicans are both implementing the agenda of the financial elitist class, and given that Frank criticizes both pro-corporate political parties and the corporate-dominated economic system, why then does he not mention turning away from the political duopoly?

Frank can describe in skilful prose the faults and cracks in the system and the contradictions of society. However, can the solution be had within the political duopoly? Pity the Billionaire was ostensibly not meant to provide solutions and neither was What’s the Matter with Kansas?. These two books come across as well-written lamentations, and should the political and economic systems perpetuate, then there is the opportunity for future lamentation.

Yet Frank knows that the system wasn’t always like this. He pointed to the wisdom of the Hungarian historian Karl Polanyi expressed in his opus, The Great Transformation, which cited communalism as a natural condition of humans and rejected self-regulating markets as unnatural. Nonetheless, the Republicans and the Democrats, as desired by big business and financial interests, have undone much of the New Deal regulatory mechanisms implemented by the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Given this, then how can either the Republicans or the Democrats be entrusted to look after the interest of the masses, the 99%?

If readers are looking for an insightful, piercing, and highly readable critique into the system that fails the masses in society, then Pity the Billionaire is highly recommended. If readers are looking for a promising alternative system, then they are better off reading – despite its very dense prose – Parecon: Life after Capitalism or — the easier to read — Realizing Hope: Life Beyond Capitalism.

1. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957): 46.
2. I have written several articles on the topic of lesser evilism, including: “The Lesser-of-Two Evils,” 19 April 2004; “An Unconscionable Outcome: Chomsky and the Hopelessness of Lesser Evilism,” Dissident Voice, 9-10 October 2004; “The Utter Futility of Lesser Evilism,” Dissident Voice, 24 May 2007; “Evilism: There Is No Lesser,” Dissident Voice, 29 July 2011;

“Dad, why is the government so upset about North Korea launching a rocket?”

“Well, son, our government says it threatens regional security and violates international law.”

“Why isn’t regional security threatened and international law violated when we launch a rocket? I mean how would we have gotten to the moon if we hadn’t launched rockets?”

“Why so many questions? Have you finished your homework already?”

“Finished Dad. Our teacher taught us that we should ask questions and develop our critical thinking ability. I’m trying to do that.”

“Didn’t your teacher teach you to respect your elders? We have to trust our leaders because we are the good guys. We are fighting for democracy, and the North Koreans are Commies.”

“So being a Commie means they are bad guys?”

“That’s right, son.”

“So we can launch rockets because we are good guys, and they can’t launch rockets because they are bad guys?”

“That’s right. Just think, the North Koreans are wasting money on weapons while their own people are starving.”

“But I heard that we are cancelling our food aid to those starving people. Is that what good guys do, Dad?”

“Look son, if we give food aid to the North Korean people, their dictators will use money to build rockets instead of feeding the people.”

“Have they ever used their rockets against us?”

“No, but they might.”

“I learned in social studies that we bombed them in the Korean War, but they’ve never come over here and bombed us, so I don’t understand why they are the threat and why we are not a threat. I guess it is just because we are the good guys. If we launch rockets, it must be okay because we are the good guys. If they launch rockets, it is a bad thing because they are the bad guys?”

“Now you are getting it.”

“That must be the same reason we can have nuclear weapons but the Iranians can’t: because they are the bad guys, and we are the good guys.”

“Now you are thinking critically, son.”

The plight of the Tamils is chronicled in Ron Ridenour’s book, Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka (Chennai: New Century Bookhouse, 2011). The oppression and genocide experienced by the Tamils is not as well-known as the occupation, oppression, and genocide experienced by the Palestinians even though it is of much longer duration.

I had known that many Tamils lived in Canada having escaped persecution back home. However, in 1997, I became more intimately familiar with the civil war in Sri Lanka while working in Maldives. Many of the workers — and some of my colleagues — were from Sri Lanka. I heard complaints that Tamils were discriminated against because of their language and religion. Worse were the tales of bloodthirsty pogroms of Sinhalese against the Tamils, including torture, murder, rapes — all this committed by Buddhists, people supposedly seeking enlightenment.

Tamils are victims of Sinhalese, but one cannot escape the conclusion that they are also victims of themselves. This comes through in the details of Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka, although the author leaves this mainly for the reader to piece together. The solidarity of the Tamil people is underwhelming.

Ridenour holds, “The Tamils have every right and need to exist in peace and equality, and this is possible only if they have their own state.” The first clause is axiomatic from any human rights-observing person; however, the second part is more open to dissension. There are plenty of examples of different ethnicities eventually coming to a more-or-less peaceful co-existence within the same state. Sometimes autonomus regions can grant the equal human rights desired by all humans. However, circumstances certainly indicate that the Sinhalese were disrespectful of the rights of Tamils and tried to impose — violently, if need be — their nationalism, language, and religion into every nook and cranny of Sri Lanka.

Tamils, of course, had every right to resist and agitate for their rights. Would partitioning the geography of Sri Lanka solve the situation, as Ridenour alludes? Or would it have served as a durable cause célèbre for Sinhalese to reunite the island? As Ridenour notes, the Tamils had a de facto state. What if they had more earnestly negotiated from the strength of their position of de facto statehood toward securing an autonomous Tamil region within a Sri Lanka nation (as an acceptable fallback position from separation)?

Very importantly, Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka provides a historical backdrop to the Sinhalese-Tamil civil war, starting with the first humans in Sri Lanka and working forward. Ridenour writes that a Tamil presence dates back many centuries in Sri Lanka. Both the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils have India as their origin. The European invasions and colonization of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) began in the sixteenth century, and were enabled by the lack of solidarity between Sinhalese and Tamils. During their colonial rule, the British brought over Tamil coolies to work the plantations.

The Tamils did economically better under British administration than Sinhalese causing envy and friction. The majority Sinhalese sought to exert themselves through making their religion, Buddhism, the sole national religion and their language, Sinhala, the sole official language. “The Tamils history in Sri Lanka is one of constant and widespread discrimination.” These chauvanistic moves were followed up with bloody violence wreaked on the Tamils, which Ridenour argues, fit the legal definition of genocide.

Eventually, Tamils formed resistance groups that defended Tamils and pressed for a Tamil state where they felt they could be free from Sinhalese discrimination and violence. The best known group was the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) who were no stranger to using extreme violence and were declared terrorists by many, although Ridenour puts this label into perspective.

“Really, if I starve the Tamils, the Sinhala people will be happy.” President Junius Richard Jayewardene was quoted in the Daily Telegraph in 1983. Strangely enough, many so-called terrorists are victims of genocide.

Tamils did not just fight Sinhalese military. Tamil rebel factions fought each other; Tamils fought the Indian “peacekeepers.” The Tamils were adept at finding enemies to fight, but what allies did Tamils find?

Lack of Solidarity

Even the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuṇa (People’s Liberation Front) was opposed to a ceasefire with the Tamils, calling it “part of a western conspiracy to destabilize, divide and re-conquer” Sri Lanka. Yet, if the reasoning proffered by Ridenour for Marxist reluctance to lay down arms is correct, then it exposes a gaping contradiction among the Marxists: they preferred to fight a divisive civil war to avoid being divided.

In the end, the deep divisions among the Tamils would be their very undoing. The egos of LTTE “leader” Velupillai Prabhakaran and Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan (Colonel Karuna) in the East split the Tamils further. Karuna disobeyed orders for the transfer of his fighters, and Prabharakan expelled him from the LTTE. Karuna went over to the Sri Lankan government side.

Now the LTTE was forced to fight the government troops and three Tamil paramilitary groups. It was a losing proposition for Tamils.

Ridenour attempts to answer the question: Why the Tigers failed? The question also implies why the Tamil people failed?

Among the reasons, Ridenour points to Karuna’s defection, Prabharakan’s authoritarian leadership, his reliance on conventional warfare rather than guerrilla warfare, and Prabharakan’s brutality.

The Tigers defeat was ultimately a defeat for the Tamil people. They were a house divided. There was no unity between Sri-Lankan Tamils and Indian Tamils, no unity between Tamils and Muslims, and, of course, what unity can one expect from within an ethnicity that has an oppressive caste system? There was even divisiveness among Tamil fighters; they had to defend against each other as well as Sinhalese fighters. This is hardly a successful strategy for liberation.

A whirlwind of genocidal ferocity engulfed the Tamil people. The western media reported little of it; after all, it did not directly involve western fighters. The Tamils have lost control of areas they held in the north and the east. Ridenour writes of “enforced disappearances” of Tamils, maybe into the human trafficking market that opened. Sinhalese subsequently were being “settled” into Tamil areas and homes.

UNICEF spokesman James Elder spoke of the children’s “unimagineable suffering,” now no longer recruited as fighters are instead coerced into prostitution, sex trafficking, and alcohol smuggling.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called the devastation “… the most appalling scene I have seen …”

The Sri Lankan defense ministry triumphed its ”humanitarian operation” victory as one with zero civilian casualties. Ridenour pointed to the videos that appeared on UK’s Channel 4 which belie that defense ministry claim.

Where now?

There is a substantial Tamil diaspora that has begun to organize internationally. A young Tamil socialist, Sharmini Lathan, seems to know the way out of the morass. He told Ridenour: “We need to combine all our forces and struggles: Tamils, Arabs, Latin Americans… We need to help each other, [sic] because we have common problems and goals.”

That the United Nations accomplished nothing to protect humans from the scourge of war in Sri Lanka was unsurprising. Of some surprise was the non-solidarity not just among the Sri Lankans; it was among Arab states, leftist states such as Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia who abandoned Tamils. It leads Ridenour to a sad conclusion that “we are heading for moral collapse, and then fascism throughout much of the world.”

Clearly, the Tamils were discriminated against; they were persecuted; and they were forced to resist violently. They resisted largely with minimal support of leftists, communists, and revolutionaries elsewhere. Ridenour found out what he could about the Tamil struggle; he held to to his moral and ideological principles. This single person did not turn his back on the Tamils on the other side of the globe, and he called his fellow leftists out on their lack of solidarity.

Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka gives the background information necessary for the reader to become informed of what led to the civil war and its still unfolding aftermath. Ridenour criticizes the lack of leftist solidarity with the Tamil struggle, but how much of the blame do the Tamils themselves share? One surely would not go so far as to blame any people for a genocide against them, but part of the Tamil struggle was internecine. Readers of Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka will have a solid base to discuss, research further, and form their own conclusions.

1. Yes, even Arab nations unmindful of or insouciant to how that reflects on their Arab brethren in Palestine.

A group led by a pro-Palestinian rights campaigner, Ali Abunimah, put out a call for a disavowal of Gilad Atzmon, “a musician born in Israel and currently living in the United Kingdom, [who] has taken on the self-appointed task of defining for the Palestinian movement the nature of our struggle, and the philosophy underpinning it.”² [italics added]

Self-appointed? Please. Do humans need an appointment to oppose social injustices?

The anti-Atzmon signatories state they know best how to define for the Palestinian movement the nature of the Palestinian struggle; that may very well be so, and that is something that is rightfully promoted by Palestinians in the struggle.

I have not read every word or heard every speech by Atzmon, but I never came to a conclusion that he was defining anything for Palestinians. Atzmon has been focused on the occupiers, a group he stems from, and what makes them occupier-oppressors, and as a member of the group (he has since renounced allegiance with), and as a human being he has every right (indeed, it should be a duty of every human) to criticize the war crimes and crimes against peace and humanity perpetrated by another group.

Surprisingly, the signatories resort to the gutter of Zionist tactics and hurl the abused canard of racism and anti-Semitism against Atzmon. Yet Atzmon’s entire thesis is predicated upon the fact that everyone belongs to the group called Homo sapiens. He is opposed to fractionalization into groups that ignores the basic humanity of all and the rights that all humans must share equally. He opposes group/tribal supremacism and calls for the dignity of all humans to be respected.

That members of one group in large numbers deny the humanity of another group of humans must be opposed. However, it is not merely sufficient to oppose this inhumanity; it should be eradicated so that such inhumanity never surfaces again. To solve the scourge of inhumanity that arises within a group, it is only logical that the group be studied in depth and the causes of the inhumanity be identified so that solutions may be forthcoming.

Atzmon does not mince words. He states matters boldly and forthrightly. I do not always agree with his wording, and I diverge from some of his findings and conclusions. Nonetheless, his basic thesis — that we are all human beings and must treat and respect each other as equally endowed with human rights — is a thesis with which I fully agree.

Abunimah et al. charge:

Atzmon’s politics rest on one main overriding assertion that serves as springboard for vicious attacks on anyone who disagrees with his obsession with “Jewishness”. He claims that all Jewish politics is “tribal,” and essentially, Zionist. Zionism, to Atzmon, is not a settler-colonial project, but a trans-historical “Jewish” one, part and parcel of defining one’s self as a Jew. Therefore, he claims, one cannot self-describe as a Jew and also do work in solidarity with Palestine, because to identify as a Jew is to be a Zionist. We could not disagree more. Indeed, we believe Atzmon’s argument is itself Zionist because it agrees with the ideology of Zionism and Israel that the only way to be a Jew is to be a Zionist.

Atzmon, say the signatories, claims that all Jewish politics is “tribal…” How to respond? I am left wondering what exactly “Jewish politics” is? Is it politics inside Israel where Zionism is thoroughly dominant, or does it include politics in Canada, the US, and the UK, and elsewhere where the Jewish Lobby holds extraordinary sway? Politics is, by its very nature, tribal. I disagree with it, but it is a fact.

As far as I understand, Atzmon does not say that one cannot self-describe as a Jew and also do work in solidarity with Palestine. Abunimah et al. have set up a strawman to criticize. I understand that Atzmon finds it is unnecessary to self-describe as a Jew and that such self-description obfuscates the thesis that we are all humans. For this writer, to identify as a Jew does not mean to be a Zionist. A core principle of progressivism is respect for diversity. That people identify with any group is non-problematic as long as the basic humanity of everyone is respected.

The signatories may well be characterized as having sprung a “vicious attack” on Atzmon. Describing Atzmon as being obsessed with “Jewishness” is like criticizing a Canadian patriot with being obsessed with “Canadianness” or a devout Catholic as being obsessed with “Christianness” because Atzmon was born a Jew. When a group starts charging others with racism and anti-Semitism, then they should be careful of uttering allegations that smack of racism and anti-Semitism.

Abunimah et al. state without offering one example in their call: “… as Palestinians, we see such [Atzmon's] language as immoral and completely outside the core foundations of humanism, equality and justice, on which the struggle for Palestine and its national movement rests.”

This is splittism; it is disunity; it is anti-solidarizing. It is well known that a house split against itself will fall. I am sure that many Palestinians support Atzmon for having the courage to accuse a large segment of Jewry of condoning and supporting Zionism and its crimes. What is important is that there is a solidarity against all racism, Zionism, colonialism, and imperialism, even though there will be disagreements on tactics in achieving social justice.

The anti-Atzmon signatories “reaffirm that there is no room in this historic and foundational analysis of our struggle for any attacks on our Jewish allies, Jews, or Judaism…” With all due respect, this is misleading and just plain wrong. First, as stated, I do not find that Atzmon is defining the struggle for Palestinians as Abunimah et al. claim (without presenting one piece of clear evidence). Second, while solidarity is crucial to resistance and revolutionary movements, the tenets of an ideology (or in this case, a religion) are — and must be — challengeable. Judaism must be as open to honest scrutiny as any other religion like Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, etc.

I agree wholeheartedly with the signatories that anti-Semitic or racist language is anathema.

I support wholeheartedly the Palestinian people’s struggle for social justice, for human rights, for the rights to regain what has been criminally dispossessed from them. However, Abunimah et al. appear disingenuous when they write, “We will not allow a false sense of expediency to drive us into alliance with those who attack, malign, or otherwise attempt to target our political fraternity with all liberation struggles and movements for justice.” First, who is driving who? The only driving that is palpable from their invective (because they are maligning Atzmon) is to drive Atzmon out. Second, I am unaware of anyone driving Abunimah et al. into alliance with Atzmon or that he has requested such a specific alliance. Third, Atzmon has not sought leadership — that I know of — to any political fraternity or liberation struggle. He is a free agent, and free agents have what any free human has, the right to speak freely, and particularly to give voice to their conscience when they see evil. No one has the right to deprive another human of this freedom.

Palestinians must guide their liberation struggle. They must protect the integrity of their movement; but the integrity of a movement is impaired by wilfully attacking others — especially the human rights and freedom of others — outside of the movement. If Palestinians want to go it alone against the Zionists, then that is their prerogative. I believe, nonetheless, that Atzmon is strategically correct and Abunimah et al. are strategically wrong. Zionism, racism, colonialism, and imperialism are best defeated when the tidal wave of a united humanity washes away the evils of inhumanity.

May all humans conspicuously recognize, affirm, and support the humanity and dignity of Palestinians, the humanity and dignity of Tamils, the humanity and dignity of Indigenous peoples everywhere, and the humanity and dignity of all peoples who suffer occupation and oppression wherever they may be.

1. I did so myself when one writer opined that Jews were a monolith. See “This is Not Progressivism,” Dissident Voice, 6 February 2006.
2. Ali Abunimah, et al., “Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon,” US Palestinian Community Network, 13 March 2012.

His article is humanistic because he recognizes and opposes the offense of the Israeli anthem for an “Arab Israeli” (although Avnery’s bias is evident in how he shies away from calling the people Palestinian).

Avnery is critical of many anthems. I tend to be skeptical of all anthems, as they oftentimes serve as a vehicle of patriotic indoctrination. Albert Einstein recognized the darkness that underlies patriotism: “Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!”

Yet Avnery found the Canadian anthem to be an exception:

… Canada changed its anthem not so long ago, exchanging the British anthem for one that French Canadians can sing with a clear conscience, without denying their own identity. “O Canada” enhances the unity of all citizens. [italics added]

With all due respect, what Avnery writes about the Canadian anthem and Canada is misinformed.

The “O Canada” lyrics are palpably colonialist and sexist:

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command…

Many Canadians regard the Original Peoples as a founding people; however, their languages are still not recognized as official languages, so in some respects they are worse off that the Indigenous Palestinians are in Israel.

So what kind of “patriot love” should Indigenous peoples in Canada feel, and what kind of “patriot love” should other “Canadians” of conscience feel?

The French version:

O Canada! Terre de nos aïeux, (O Canada! Land of our ancestors,)
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux! (Your forehead is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers!)

Car ton bras sait porter l’épée, (For your arms are ready to carry the sword,)
Il sait porter la croix! … (You will be able to carry the cross! …)

In the French version, the land belongs to the, presumably, French and European ancestors. The readiness to commit violence in the name of patriotism is evident. Christian symbolism is also present.

Canada exists as a English-French state for much the same reason Israel exists as a Jewish state. Europeans came to take the land of Indigenous peoples — even by lethal force. In Palestine it was the Nakba, for “Canada” it was a genocidal event that included the wholesale extermination of the Beothuk.

And since the point about the disunity sown by the Canadian national anthem has been made, to mention daughters is merely to belabor the impropriety of the anthem of the colonially derived entity called Canada.

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

– Matthew 7:1-2

Today some ultra-right-wing fluff arrived in my email from someone I know well, and I don’t know if was a big joke (probably it was), but some people obviously swallow this Kool Aid.

I prefer not to quote religious texts, but there is also much wisdom contained therein, and it serves well when it thoroughly contradicts professed Christians of the zealous variety.

The email missive contained an article written by one Marybeth Hicks (who probably would give Ann Coulter a run for sheer outrageousness. Do these women really believe what they write, or are their words just to sustain a livelihood based on pandering to the ignorance or prejudices of their audience?)

Praise from one of Ms. Hick’s admirers is draped over the masthead of her own website: “Fellow moms and dads: It’s time to unite and reclaim the hearts, minds, and souls of our children from socialist indoctrinators! … Marybeth Hicks exposes the Left’s cradle-to-grave campaign to undermine religion, the traditional family, and free market capitalism.”

Hicks begins her piece: “Call it an occupational hazard but I can’t look at the Occupy Wall Street protesters without thinking, ‘Who parented these people?’”¹

Not only is Hicks, the mother of four, judging the protestors, but she is also casting aspersions on their parents; in biblical parlance, something like visiting the sins of the children upon the parents.

I submit that instead of looking askance at protestors and pointing a finger at their parents, Hicks should be lauding the parents and their children who get off their duffs to agitate against injustices and bring about a better society.

Hicks, a self-described “culture columnist,” summarizes the “fairyland agenda” of the Occupy movement by one of their placards: “Everything for everybody.”

Sure, why not? Does Hicks believe in “Everything for the 1%, and crumbs for the masses.” Hicks’s crumbs are obviously much larger that the bird crumbs most people subsist on. Moreover, Hicks’s crumbs depend on her fealty to the whims of the elitists, as is clear from being a columnist for the Washington Post, an agitprop organ of the 1%.

As with any extreme right-winger, their stock-in-trade is ad hominem, slinging mud because they are bereft of facts and coherent argumentation. Thus Hicks writes of a the “pipe-dream platform” of the Occupy movement. Does the culture columnist not realize that Occupy movement is a coalition of different factions and actors within society, that it is anarchistic in not being led by any particular personality, and that there is no specific platform besides a demand for social justice?

Hicks attempts witty prose to smear “the protesters [as being manipulated] like bedsprings in a brothel.”

It is easy to trot out simplistic statements; but where is the evidence or supporting logic? What does Ms. Hicks suggest? Should children, as she implicitly characterizes the 99%, obey and submit to the 1%? Should the activists become passive and accept the status quo maldistribution of wealth and power?

Hicks criticizes the parents of the protestors (as if they are only kids and are not joined by parents and grandparents, but such facts would inconvenience Hicks): “There are some crucial life lessons that the protesters’ moms clearly have not passed along.”

Hicks then reels off “… five things the OWS protesters’ mothers [obviously, for Hicks, mothers are most culpable] should have taught their children but obviously didn’t…” [italics added]

Life isn’t fair. The concept of justice – that everyone should be treated fairly – is a worthy and worthwhile moral imperative on which our nation was founded. But justice and economic equality are not the same…

No matter how you try to “level the playing field,” some people have better luck, skills, talents or connections that land them in better places. Some seem to have all the advantages in life but squander them, others play the modest hand they’re dealt and make up the difference in hard work and perseverance and some find jobs on Wall Street and eventually buy houses in the Hamptons. Is it fair? Stupid question.

Hicks obviously does not get it. The protestors are not asking whether the system is fair; they are protesting for the very reason that it is not fair. So I pose a question to the mother of four: Should people just accept an unfair system? It is also a stupid question. But that is where the thought processes of Ms. Hicks lead.

Nothing is “free.” Protesting with signs that seek “free” college degrees and “free” health care make you look like idiots because colleges and hospitals don’t operate on rainbows and sunshine. There is no magic money machine to tap for your meandering educational careers and “slow paths” to adulthood and the 53 percent of taxpaying Americans owe you neither a degree nor an annual physical.

Who looks like an “idiot”? It is not foolish to toss out platitudes that are easily refutable by anyone beyond the diaper stage?

Ms. Hicks does not seem to grasp that the protestors are also Americans, every bit as much as the elitist 1%. By her logic, “free” schooling from kindergarten to grade 12 should also be eliminated (and, indeed, that looks like the direction education is heading in the US and Canada). The “magic money machine” that she snidely refers to is called “tax.” Workers (and corporations) pay tax, and some of that tax money goes to funding an education system. Progressive taxation is a system that gives government the means to provide everyone some semblance of a chance to attain the knowledge and skills to succeed in the capitalist work world. As for free university education, is there a reason that some European countries can provide free university education, including economically besieged Cuba, to all its citizens and the US (and Canada) cannot? Hicks should talk to the Cubans or northern Europeans about how she can get one of their “magic money machines” for the US. At the same time, she might as well find out about a “magic money machine” for universal health care from those same countries.

These protestors seem cognizant about the “magic money machine” of which Hicks seems oblivious.

Nevertheless, Hicks points out “this obvious fact” to protestors: “… Real people with real dollars are underwriting your civic temper tantrum.”

Is Ms. Hicks is not throwing a temper tantrum? As for her puzzling logic: how is it that real people’s money is funding the protestors? They are protesting because of the unfairness where not all citizens have jobs and money to pay for the basic expenses of life.

Hicks’s third “thing”:

Your word is your bond. When you demonstrate to eliminate student loan debt, you are advocating precisely the lack of integrity you decry in others. … No one forces you to borrow money; you are free to choose educational pursuits that don’t require loans or to seek technical or vocational training that allows you to support yourself and your ongoing educational goals. Also, for the record, being a college student is not a state of victimization. It’s a privilege that billions of young people around the globe would die for – literally.

Your word is your bond. Ms. Hicks, that is why people are protesting — to bind the government to its word. You see, there is something called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the United States is a signatory to. Hence it is bound by its signature to uphold the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of these articles is Article 26 (1), which states:

Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

However, if tuition fees are exorbitant, they pose a barrier to those who merit such an education. Furthermore, students in poverty are pitted in an unfair competition to decide merit. To fairly assess merit, the playing field must be leveled.

Yet, Ms. Hicks seems okay with many students being saddled with gargantuan debts to attain an education. This system of student debt has been called a “swindle,” where student borrowers are “… in a position similar to subprime mortgage debtors is also indicated in the Bureau of Labor Statistics…”²

To blithely state, as Hicks does, that “No one forces you to borrow money…” is just ludicrous. High tuition fees force students without funds to borrow money. And, as she points out in her article, a higher education is the way to a job.

Nonetheless, student loans can be forgiven, and it would, arguably, be good for the economy.”³

Hicks’s fourth “thing”:

A protest is not a party. … You look foolish, you smell gross, you are clearly high and you don’t seem to realize that all around you are people who deem you irrelevant.

This is pure ad hominem, revealing more of the speaker than the target of the speakers mudslinging. It reveals that speaker of ad hominem has no persuasive logic or facts to back her assertions, so instead she cast slurs. Is that how a mother should teach her children to behave?

Hicks blames the unemployed for their joblessness. Obviously the system is fine. Says Hicks:

There are reasons you haven’t found jobs. The truth? Your tattooed necks, gauged ears, facial piercings and dirty dreadlocks are off-putting. … Occupy reality: Only 4 percent of college graduates are out of work. If you are among that 4 percent, find a mirror and face the problem. It’s not them. It’s you.

Yes, and what kind of jobs do the college graduates have? Alan Nasser, a professor emeritus of Political Economy, said, “Most of these jobs will be low paying and will not require a bachelor’s degree.”² How much debt should one incur to get these jobs?

Freedom is obviously another peeve of Ms. Hicks. In Ms. Hick’s ultra-conservative world, people should conform to the dictates of the system.

As for her discombobulated logic, how is it she can support expensive education that forces students to take on onerous debt loads to study and graduate, and then call upon people to go to college to get a job?

What is “off-putting” is people who think it is okay that life is a lottery, that some people cannot receive an equal chance at a good education, that some people are born into the lap of luxury through exploitation of labor, that some people are plunged into poverty through the misfortune of ill health and not being able to afford health insurance, that destitution and homelessness are mere facts-of-life, that racism and discrimination is a fact, and that the monopoly media portrays the unfair system as the best system.

If people had always capitulated to such weak-minded nonsense, then slavery would still exist in the US; workers would have no right to organize for workplace safety, fairer pay, shorter work weeks, overtime pay, worker rights, etc.; women would be stuck in the kitchens without the vote; and Indigenous peoples (the rightful custodians of the land) would be marginalized to reservations.

But all of this doesn’t matter because Ms. Hicks can always trot out her truism: Life isn’t fair.

However, that makes for one hell of a good reason to protest.

Many of these “things” are honor bound by signature of the government to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — for example,

Article 23.
•(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

and

Article 25.
•(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

As Hicks stated: “Your word is your bond.”

Amen.

1. Available at Merybeth Hicks, “Some Belated Parental Advice to Protesters,” Town Hall, 20 October 2011.
2. Mike Whitney, “The Student Loan Swindle,” Dissident Voice, 21 October 2011.
3. Who would foot the bill [for student debt forgiveness]? … there is one deep pocket that could pull it off—the Federal Reserve. In its first quantitative easing program (QE1), the Fed removed $1.3 trillion in toxic assets from the books of Wall Street banks. For QE4, it could remove $1 trillion in toxic debt from the backs of millions of students.

   The economy would only be the better for it, as was shown by the G.I. Bill, which provided virtually-free higher education for returning veterans, along with low-interest loans for housing and business. The G.I. Bill had a sevenfold return. It was one of the best investments Congress ever made.” Ellen Hodgson Brown, “QE4: Forgive the Students,” Dissident Voice, 21 October 2011.

Noam Chomsky, however, considers Pearson a “major criminal, really extreme.”² Chomsky wrote the foreword to Yves Engler’s latest book: Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping — The Truth May Hurt.

Engler presents Pearson’s words and record, but an image other than that of an altruistic world statesman emerges. He deconstructs the myth of Pearsonian peacekeeping. Engler holds, “There is, in fact, a strong case to be made that he should be posthumously charged with abetting war crimes.”

Pearsonian leadership saw Canada tied to great western powers, particularly the United States. He was a fervent anti-Communist, calling the USSR an “oppressor on a scale surpassing even Nazi Germany.”

Writes Engler, “To get a sense of Pearson’s hostility toward Russia, in 1938 he said he hoped the Nazis and Soviets would destroy each other.”

Pearson, “the peacekeeper,” supported the formation of NATO and not just as a defensive organization but one — according to Engler — justifying European/North American dominance across the globe.

Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping details Pearson’s record of supporting western imperialism and colonialism throughout the world. Under Pearson, Canadian policy supported European countries, the US, and Zionists in their territorial grabs and occupations abroad.

International tribunals and organizations were rejected by Pearson when contrary to great power interests. For example, “… Pearson rejected the Arab countries push to have the International Court of Justice decide whether the UN was allowed to partition Palestine.”

Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping notes that Pearson was so extreme in bias to Israel that some Zionists referred to him as “Lord Balfour” of Canada and “rabbi Pearson.” Pearson even received the Theodore Herzl award from the Zionist Organization of America for his “commitment to Jewish freedom and Israel.”

In Asia, Canada supported the Kuomintang in China. Canada’s famed peacekeeper pushed to send troops into the Korean imbroglio. Canada was even implicated in developing weapons of mass destruction, including biological warfare, that caused Pearson to perjure himself in parliament.

Such was his unstinting service to US dominance that Pearson claimed: “it is inconceivable to Canadians, it is inconceivable certainly to me, that the United States would ever initiate an aggressive war.” Pearson refused to acknowledge US involvement in the invasion of Guatemala, and he served US aims in Viet Nam.

Pearson’s role for Canada in Viet Nam was biased to the extent he “effectively called on Saigon to ignore the required election and break the Geneva Accords.”

Pearson backed CIA coups. Of the US-British overthrow of Iran’s first popularly elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, Pearson rationalized: “In their anxiety to gain full control of their [Iranian] affairs by the elimination of foreign influence, they are exposing themselves to the menace of communist penetration and absorption — absorption into the Soviet sphere.”

The Pearsonian logic is mind-numbing. In other words, by attempting to eliminate foreign influence, Iran was opening itself up to foreign influence; therefore, other foreigners were obliged to step in to impose their own influence.

It was not just in Asia that Pearson backed western colonialism but also Africa. Canada voted against a UN resolution calling for self-determination in the Portuguese territories thwarting independence aspirations in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea Bissau. Engler describes Pearson’s policies as “sympathetic to South Africa’s apartheid regime…”

And how did the peacekeeper stand on nuclear proliferation? The so-called father of peacekeeping allowed US nuclear weapons to be stationed on Canadian soil, and he backed US nuclear weapon interests in international fora. Writes Engler, “Ottawa voted against a UN call to ban nuclear weapons and in December 1954 Pearson voted to allow NATO forces to accept tactical nuclear weapons …”

Furthermore,

Pearson dismissed civil society groups demanding nuclear disarmament. When the Canadian Peace Congress called for the atomic bomb to be outlawed, he said “a victim is just as dead whether he is killed by a bayonet or atom bomb.”

In the western hemisphere, Canadian corporate interests influenced Pearson to support the Brazilian military coup and the Trujillo dictatorship in Dominican Republic.

An unmistakable global picture develops in Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping. Around the world, Pearson backed western governmental and corporate interests, especially American interests — despite the warring carried out to achieve those aims.

Upon closer scrutiny, concludes Engler, “… Canada’s hero appears less a man of peace than a strident cold warrior.” Even former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau is quoted as calling Pearson the “defrocked priest of peace.”

Engler asks, “What was Pearson’s motivation? And, what is it about his legacy that keeps his name alive in current Canadian foreign policy debates?”

Part of the answer is revealed by how Pearson landed a sinecure courtesy of “some of his wealthy friends…”

Engler concludes by asking readers “to think of themselves as members of a truth and reconciliation commission looking into Canada’s foreign policy past.”

“Honest Canadians need to confront the truth of what has been done in our name. Mythologizing this country’s foreign policy past does not help people in understanding our current reality. The truth may hurt, but it also sets you free.”

The monopoly media and a controlled establishment narrative have created an image of Lester Pearson that has endured over time to the present day. Engler examines the narrative and finds it apocryphal. The result is Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping — a sweepingly persuasive book filled with background and references that makes it easy for readers to research and reach their own conclusions.

1. “Lester Bowles Pearson – Biography,” Nobel Prize.org.
2. See Kim Petersen, “Canada: The Honest Broker?” Dissident Voice, 7 August 2006.

Harper spoke of overwhelming evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. No evidence was provided.

That Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes caused Harper to respond, “I think there is absolutely no doubt they are lying. Absolutely no doubt.” The words “I think” and “absolutely no doubt” are linguistically at loggerheads. “I think” means “to have a belief or opinion”; beliefs and opinions imply uncertainty. They imply possibility of being wrong. They do not imply “absolutely no doubt.”

As for lying, there is a well-known saying that those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw rocks.”² Then again, one might argue who knows a liar better than another liar? To which one might retort, “How do you know the liar is not lying about someone being a liar?”

The state media CBC did not aid matters with its own piece of disinformation: “An IAEA report last fall said some of Iran’s clandestine activities could be for no other reason than a nuclear weapons program.” The IAEA report has been debunked by many. For example, the IAEA inspector never worked on nuclear weapons.³ Also,

The IAEA claim that a foreign scientist – identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko – had been involved in building the alleged containment chamber has now been denied firmly by Danilenko himself…⁴

The well-disinformed Harper reply to the CBC disinformation (why can a state media funded to the tune of $1.7 billion annually not get the story and facts right when a small independent internet newsletter with no budget can? What does it indicate?): “And that, I think, is just beyond dispute at this point.” [italics added] So thinks Harper. Harper added more opinion: “I think the only dispute is how far advanced it is.” [italics added]

Harper opined, “I’ve watched and listened to what the leadership in the Iranian regime says, and it frightens me.” First, the language is demonizing. How would Harper respond if his government were referred to as a “regime”? Second, as for frightening, how about a leaked October 2003 European Commission poll of 500 people from each of the EU’s member nations (n=7,500) who were presented a list of 15 nations and asked: “tell me if in your opinion it presents or not a threat to peace in the world.” The choice of 59 percent was Israel as the top threat to world peace.⁵

On this there is no dispute: Israel is in possession of nuclear weapons. Israel has launched plenty of wars with its neighbors. Why is the Israeli regime not frightening? Yet Israel is the country that Harper said would always have a “steadfast friend” in a Canadian Conservative government.

Harper opines again, “In my judgment, these are people who have a particular, you know, a fanatically religious worldview, and their statements imply to me no hesitation about using nuclear weapons if they see them achieving their religious or political purposes. And … I think that’s what makes this regime in Iran particularly dangerous.” [italics added]

How is that glass house doing? To talk about “a fanatically religious worldview” when you are allied with hard-Right Christian fundamentalism comes across as chutzpah.⁶

Harper contends, “While there’s, I think, a growing belief of a number of governments that my assessment is essentially correct, I think there’s still big uncertainty about what exactly to do.” [italics added]

Since Harper is so certain about the danger posed by Iran and its having nuclear weapons, what was Harper’s position on Iraq possessing weapons-of-mass-destruction?

It is inherently dangerous to allow a country such as Iraq to retain weapons of mass destruction, particularly in light of its past aggressive behaviour. If the world community fails to disarm Iraq, we fear that other rogue states will be encouraged to believe that they too can have these most deadly of weapons to systematically defy international resolutions and that the world will do nothing to stop them.⁷

Another time Harper said, “I don’t know all the facts on Iraq, but I think we should work closely with the Americans.”⁸

Today Iraq is a destroyed country, millions are refugees, upwards of 600,000 people were killed by a US-led invasion supported by Harper — despite his not knowing all the facts. Is this the credibility people would put their faith in?

Where was the background checks done by CBC News and their ace reporter Peter Mansbridge? What of the duty to report honestly and without prejudice? After all there is a good case that disinformation is a crime against humanity and a crime against peace.⁹

1. CBC News, “Iran ‘frightens me,’ Harper says: ‘Beyond dispute’ that Iran is building nuclear weapon, PM tells CBC,” CBC, 17 January 2012.
2. Even the Canadian Senate launched an inquiry into the lies of Harper. See althia.raj, “Senate launches an inquiry on Harper’s broken promises,” Eye on the Hill, 16 February 2011. See also “Five Years of Harper: A Legacy of Broken Promises“; “Broken promises piling up for Harper“; “Stephen Harpers Broken Promises: 100+ Reasons Not to Vote for Harper.”
3. See Gareth Porter, “IAEA’s ‘Soviet Nuclear Scientist’ Never Worked on Weapons,” Dissident Voice, 10 November 2011.
4. Gareth Porter, “Ex-Inspector Rejects IAEA Iran Bomb Test Chamber Claim,” Dissident Voice, 19 November 19 2011.
5. See Peter Beaumont, “Israel outraged as EU poll names it a threat to peace,” Observer, 2 November 2003.
6. See Marci McDonald, “Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada’s religious right,” The Walrus, October 2006; Letters, “Harper and the religious right,” The Star, 13 May 2010.
7. Stephen Harper supporting the American invasion of Iraq, House of Commons, March 20, 2003. Accessed at In Their Own Words.
8. Stephen Harper, Report Newsmagazine, March 25th 2002. As it turned out, Harper wasn’t the only one who didn’t know all the facts. Accessed at In Their Own Words.
9. Kim Petersen, “Disinformation: A Crime Against Humanity and a Crime Against Peace,” Press Action, 17 February 2005.

The UNSC resolution regarding Libya was based on the alleged need to protect the civilian population from the government forces. UNSC resolution 1973 invoked the responsibility to protect and voted to establish a no-fly zone over Libya with “to take all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya…”

Next in the Imperialist Crosshairs

After the collective might of NATO, its Arab League (a league of dictators) allies, and Libyan insurgents attacked and defeated the government of Libya, that the focus next turn to Syria was unsurprising. The intended United States remapping of the Middle East is hardly a secret.¹

Yet corporate newspapers around the world naively report. In the Philippine press ran an article titled, “Foreign monitors fuel Syrian protests.”² The Syrian government was described as using violence to quell the protests.

And how did the various governments in the United States disperse the 99% occupations if not by police force? Ask Scott Olsen, a peacefully protesting veteran of the US attack on Iraq, who suffered a fractured skull and brain swelling after being hit by a projectile allegedly courtesy of the Oakland police. Or try asking ex-marine Kayvan Sabehgi who suffered a ruptured spleen in an apparently unprovoked beating by an Oakland police. It seems violent put-downs of dissent occurs in Syria as well as the US.

On the next page of the Philippine newspaper was another article, “US finalizes deal to sell F-15s to Saudi Arabia,” thereby “boosting the military strength of a key US ally in the Middle East…”³ Is it not hypocritical for the US to back the removal of one dictatorship while militarily supporting another dictatorship?

The Syrian president, Bashar Assad, rules without electoral consent. Assad is undeniably, therefore, a dictator. Assad is now promising a new constitution which will go to a referendum before Syrians. If so, it is a step — slow in coming — toward more legitimate rule.

So is Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, so is Al Khalifa in Bahrain, and these regimes are committing human rights violations that arguably dwarf those allegedly committed by the Assad regime. The mere facts that there are other non-elected regimes in the world and that their human rights abuses might exceed those of Syria, does not mitigate the alleged human rights abuses of the Syrian regime. It does, however, glaringly reveal the flagrant hypocrisy of western regimes that criticize Syria’s regime while remaining mute on their own abuses and the self-same abuses of their allied states. It should seriously call into question western motives toward Syria, and it should also call into question the human rights fidelity of western states.

Does a dictatorship imply that a government is totalitarian or otherwise despotic? Can a dictatorship not be benign or even beneficial? Does being a so-called democracy through having won an election denote a government devoted to the common good? While empowering people with a right to choose their government is preferable, what is important is not any supposed legitimacy that electoral success (it is nugatory to talk about “democratic credentials” without clearly defining what democracy is) confers upon a party forming a government but rather how that government serves the masses.

There is a presumption that because the US, Canada, and other western nations have an election that these states are, consequently, democratic. However, is the mere holding of an election, no matter what the terms and conditions of the election, sufficient to define a state as a democracy? Does it matter that the capitalist parties are laden with money and smothered with media coverage while atypical capitalist or non-capitalist parties and candidates are short-changed on campaign funds and ignored or derided by the corporate media? Can this, therefore, be declared a democracy and have validity?

Requisite Conditions for Humanitarian Intervention

People are dying in Syria. Who is behind the killing is subject to disagreement. Do I trust the Syrian media? No. Do I trust the western states and their media?⁴ Would you after the spool of lies that led to the destruction of Iraq — a matter since shunted to the margins by the corporate media? Tellingly, almost all informed people know by now that there were no weapons-of-mass-destruction in Iraq when the US attacked on that pretext.

All moral-thinking humans would desire that other humans be protected from human rights abuses, killings, oppression, etc. Consequently, were it possible to intervene — morally — on behalf of other humans, then the inclination would be in favour of doing so. But how does one intervene morally?

1. There must be a clear-cut, demonstrable need for outside intervention to protect a citizenry.To be clear-cut, it must be demonstrated that insurgents are not backed or supported by outside agencies. In other words, an insurgency must be completely domestic. When belligerent outside agents are involved, this would rule out an outside intervention. Were this principle in effect, there would have been no outside attack on Libya, as the insurgents were clearly backed by NATO and probably CIA and other agencies.

2. Who determines this clear-cut, demonstrable need? Obviously, it must not be determined by a partial organization; therefore, the United Nations Security Council is ruled out as arbiter (unless all parties to a dispute agree to the UNSC fulfilling such a role).

Why is the UNSC a disreputable intervener or arbiter? The UN has too many examples of debacles, or in some cases, outright capitulation to imperialist powers. One need look no further than the UN debacles in Haiti, where MINUSTAH prevents a Haitian resistance to the coup sponsored by the US, Canada, and France⁵ or to the crimes committed by UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.⁶ There was the UN authorization of military force in the Korean War, the UN involvement in Iraq following the US aggression in 2003 (casting a pallor of legitimacy to the invasion), and also the devastation wrought on Libya — enabled by a UNSC resolution.

3. Enemy states must be precluded from participating directly or indirectly in a humanitarian intervention. Collaborators with an insurgency must be prevented from participating in any humanitarian intervention.

Who may intervene if a government is unable to rule or establish safe rule over a citizenry?⁷ If a government is unable to establish safety for its citizens, then it must be permitted to call upon outside intervention of its own choosing.

Where history reveals that certain states have wreaked colonialist or imperialist violence against other peoples, this would prima facie eliminate such a state as a disinterested player in events transpiring in a former victim. For example, based on their history of colonialism and imperialism, France, Britain, the US, and Israel have no moral authority, whatsoever, to pontificate about strife or lack of democracy in Syria.

The old aphorism, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” is prudent in cases of purportedly humanitarian intervention.

Some further questions to ascertain the true intentions of states posing to intervene on humanitarian grounds:

a) What is that state’s own behavior toward the state accused of human rights violations or blocking democracy?

b) What is that state’s own domestic history – especially current history — vis-a-vis human rights and democracy?

c) Apply the Israel test. How does the state respond to the Israeli occupation, dispossession, racism, and slow-motion genocide carried out against Palestinians?

How is it that recent events in other states, states that are opposed to Zionism, are immediately placed at the top of the queue for so-called humanitarian intervention when the Palestinians have been languishing for decades under Israeli occupation: routinely suffering discrimination, racism, massacres, and being denied democracy?⁸

Does Syria even approach within light years to the crimes of Israel?

4. States may not intervene in the affairs of another state without the imprimatur of the state’s own people. Therefore, dictatorships like Qatar, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia would not be permitted involvement in regime-changing actions such as was carried out in Libya. Since the regimes serve without genuine electoral consent, the support of the citizenry cannot be implied.

The paucity of democratic credentials would preclude Israeli involvement anywhere since a democracy is right of all people in a state.⁹

5. Social justice/humanitarianism demands that longer-standing and more pernicious violations be dealt with first. The decades-old Zionist occupations of Palestine, the Golan Heights in Syria, and Sheba’a Farms in Lebanon have long demanded just settlement.

6. An intervention must not be imposed militarily. As pointed out in the preamble to the UN Charter, war is a scourge bringing untold sorrow from which succeeding generations of humanity must be saved.

7. International law must apply equally to all states. States must adhere equally to stipulations of the UN, stipulations which must be applied equally. The preamble to the UN Charter affirms equality of states: “the equal rights of … nations large and small.”

The UN, in theory and practice, should be a world organization that respects the sovereignty of all member states equally.

Before it embarks upon extemporaneous exploits, it needs to rigorously develop this principle of sovereign equality. However, the mere fact that there are five permanent, veto-wielding members of the UNSC is proof positive that the UN is an institution wherein all members are not equal. In fact, the equality is such that the approximately 200-member UN General Assembly has less power than the the 15-member UNSC. This is clearly minority rule.

If one country is permitted (without censure or penalty) to flout ethically valid UNSC resolutions, then all member states – in accordance with sovereign equality of all states¹⁰ – must be accorded equal measure to react to UN resolutions without censure or penalty.

If the UN cannot abide by its own Charter and regulations in a principled and legal manner, then what moral or authoritative stature does it appeal to?

If there is a sovereign equality of states, how can Iran be sanctioned for development of its uranium enrichment technology¹¹ (within the bounds of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, it must be emphasized¹² ) without the same sanctions being placed on DPRK, Israel, India, Pakistan – or for that matter US, China, USSR, UK, France since they are in longstanding contravention of the NPT.¹³ Does the NPT supersede every state’s inalienable right to self-defense? When faced with a nuclear weaponized enemy what defense is there? Either all states have the right to a nuclear deterrent or none do. Arguably and logically, if every state had a nuclear deterrent, then war would be a very losing prospect for all sides. War would truly be a tactic of the mad.

Dealing with Strife in Syria

What if it is the genuine mass demand of the citizenry to remove its government, the government having lost all legitimacy?¹⁴

How should progressives react to reports out of Syria? How should progressives react to governments labeled as dictatorships — after all, democracy is a principle embraced by progressives? Progressives should simply call for full democracy and call for it everywhere.

Progressives should call for non-interference by outside agents in the affairs of another state, especially military or other belligerent interference. This does not mitigate criticism of human rights violations by rogue regimes in rogue states.

Progressives should call for the case of Syria to be treated with equal concern, deliberation, and urgency with outstanding cases everywhere — for example, in Bahrain, Yemen, Haiti, US, Canada, Aotearoa, Australia.

It must also be clearly articulated why Syria suddenly became a more pressing case than, for example, the plight of the Palestinians who have suffered under Israeli occupation-oppression, who endure racism and discrimination on a 24-hour basis, and who have endured decades of expulsion as Nakba refugees.

Why can the Sunni ruling minority trample upon Shi’a rights in Bahrain without nary a finger lifted in the UN?

Why is Syria suddenly at the top of the regime-change list?

Over and over again Muammar Gaddafi was demonized as a dictator by the West and western media and stooges within the Arab League. I saw little compelling evidence for the slur of “dictator” being used against Gaddafi. Libya presented itself as a participatory democracy, relatively independent of western capitalist shackles, with the highest standard of living on the African continent. Even if Gaddafi were a dictator (of which I am skeptical¹⁵ ), there is nothing to prevent a dictator from being benign. What is preferable: a war-mongering Barack Obama (indirectly responsible for killing families in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and standing by while Israel commits crimes against humanity in Palestine) militarily siding with an insurgency or the Libyan government fighting the insurgency to preserve freedom from imperialist-Zionist control? If indeed Libyan forces were slaughtering civilians, then the civilians should be protected. The question remains how to protect and who should protect the civilians?

There are varying accounts that emerged from Libya and now Syria. Who to believe? Is it really a difficult question? Does the US and its corporate media have a milligram of credibility? Did the US have any moral right to topple the elected government of Mossadegh in Iran and install the dictatorship of the Shah? Did the US have any moral right to split Korea and attack the North? Did the US have any moral right to attack Viet Nam to split the country and install its puppet in the South? Did the US have any moral right to depose the elected government in Haiti and send the president Jean Bertrand Aristide into exile?¹⁶ One could carry on ad nauseam back to the formation of the US on the lands of its Original Peoples. So where do the pronouncements of the US derive credibility given the historical train of its propaganda and disinformation and the stenography of its fourth estate?

The raison d’être of the UN is purportedly to protect the world from the scourge of war. How does the US play into that noble UN goal? William Blum describes the US as anything but a peace-monger in his Rogue State.¹⁷ How can anyone support peaceful intentions on the part of the US? Even Colin Powell has said the US doesn’t do peace treaties. “We won’t do nonaggression pacts or treaties, things of that nature.”¹⁸

What is not called for is for progressives to do nothing (although doing nothing is sometimes the best strategy), but rather act according to principles and end-goals of progressivism. Burying the globe deeper in hyperempire is not laying a foundation for social justice in the world.

By all means progressives should support protection of peoples everywhere, but they should not get duped by the rhetoric of hyperempire. Progressives should also eschew a false dichotomy being imposed on them. Humanitarian intervention does not necessitate it be carried out by imperialists. Where cases are presented as an urgent call for humanitarian intervention, progressives must not feel pressured to choose between two wrongs. Reject all wrongs and accept what is right and just. In the case of Syria, reject Bashar’s unchallenged grip on political power¹⁹ (and apply this principle everywhere equally), but also reject – even more fervently – imperialists seeking to impose their own puppet in Syria.

Tune out the false declamations of the corporate media. The recent lessons of Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan still reverberate loudly in the independent media.

1. Ex-US intelligence officer Ralph Peters has written of a scheme for redrawing of the borders of the Middle East and farther afield. See Kim Petersen, “A Bloody Border Project: Zionist-Imperialist Dogma from the Armed Forces Journal,” Dissident Voice, 5 June 2007.
2. AP, “Foreign monitors fuel Syrian protests,” Philippine Star, 31 December 2010, A17.
3. AP, “US finalizes deal to sell F-15s to Saudi Arabia,” Philippine Star, 31 December 2010, A-18.
4. In his speech in Damascus on 10 January 2012, Assad charged a widespread media attempt to push Syria into “state of self-collapse…” Assad also charged that western media has doctored an interview with him, but that he had an original copy to refute it. Shades of the disproven (See Juan Cole, “Hitchens the Hacker; And, Hitchens the Orientalist And, “We don’t Want Your Stinking War!” Informed Comment, 3 May 2006) but still serially repeated media disinformation campaign against Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
5. Yves Engler, “UN: Putting a Value on Haitian Life,”Dissident Voice, 13 September 2011. Seth Donnelly, “UN ‘Peacekeeping’ Soldiers Launch Brutal Attack on Haitian Street Vendors,” Dissident Voice, 26 April 2008.
6. Stephen Lendman, “UN Peacekeepers Complicit in Sex Trade,” Dissident Voice, 23 October 2010.
7. As an anarchist, I do not accept that one group of citizens be granted rule over the masses of society. The masses must be included in the decision-making of society.
8. See Amira Hass, “Palestinians are heroes, braving Israeli dictatorship,” Haaretz, December 2012. “The head is the head of the demos, the Israeli-Jewish people, who by the democratic process send governments to be the dictator over the Palestinians…

   The Israeli dictatorship is the art of the double standard (Palestinians cannot build on their agricultural land so as not to impair rural zoning, but the state can legalize a Jewish outpost on Palestinian agricultural land). It is the champion of self-righteousness and arrogance (‘the only democracy’), and holds an advanced degree in hypocrisy (‘ready to return to negotiations any time’ ).”

9. See Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken, “The necessary elimination of Israeli democracy,” Haaretz, 25 November 2011.
10. Article 2 states: “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.”
11. See United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747.
12. The NPT clearly states in Article IV (1): “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.”
13. Article VI states: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”
14. This begs the question of which governments do have legitimacy and by what grounds such governments claim such legitimacy. I submit that the governments in the US, Canada, and other western countries can lay claim to legitimacy under the present conditions of so-called democracy.
15. “How can you call someone a dictator leader who overthrew a corrupt monarchy, modernized the country, won the highest HDI in Africa, and applied a direct democracy system of government?” … “Gaddafi is not president or prime minister of Libya, but the media wants him to resign a post which does not exist.” See Antonio Cesar Oliveira, “Who is Muammar Gaddafi?” Dissident Voice, 3 March 2011.
16. For a history of pretexts see Kim Petersen, “Grasping at Straws: Searching for a War Pretext,” Dissident Voice, 4 March 2003.
17. William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2000).
18. Quoted in Steven R. Weisman, “U.S. Weighs Reward if North Korea Scraps Nuclear Arms,” New York Times, 13 August 2003.
19. I state this admittedly simplistically because Syria is under continuous threat from Israel and imperialists, and this necessitates maintaining a government free from enemy influence.

The United States could manage an expression of condolences but balked at apologizing. Meanwhile the US corporate media obfuscated the matter by reporting it as a NATO mistake.¹ If it was a NATO mistake, then why should the US apologize? Is that any way to treat your allies?

The US insisted on an investigation. Why was NATO not insisting on an investigation and carrying it out?

The Pentagon issued the investigation’s report on 22 December; it stated both sides were to blame. One side was cited as US forces (not NATO), and the other side was Pakistani forces. There was no apology.²

Pakistan called the report “short on facts.”

The Pentagon did “express sincere condolences to the Pakistani people, to the Pakistani government and, most importantly, to the families of the Pakistani soldiers who were killed or wounded.”

Liberal Media Take

Democracy Now! (DN) turned to New York Times senior reporter Eric Schmitt for analysis of the US killing of 24 Pakistani troops, and they got imperialist talk. Take, for example, Schmitt’s statement “… despite the important relationship that the U.S. and Pakistan has not only over counterterrorism priorities, but also given that Pakistan is a nuclear state, and there’s a lot of concern if those nuclear weapons or any nuclear material were ever to fall into militant hands.” DN host Amy Goodman let the statement stand unchallenged.

One might naturally surmise, therefore, that Amy Goodman and DN accept the premises of the US’s “war on terror” and that the terrorists are not the US (even though the US is owning up to killings in Pakistan, and, as part of the NATO contingent, to civilian killings in Libya.)³

One might further assume that DN holds that the US has a right to nuclear weapons and the Pakistanis do not because, supposedly, there are either no militants in the US or Pakistan cannot safeguard its nuclear weapons as well as the US. The US, by the way, is a country which has lost — as in never recovered — 11 nuclear weapons.⁴

DN is a puzzling media. It claims, “We don’t take money from corporate advertisers. We rely on donations from our global audience — people like you — to maintain our editorial independence.”

“And with the corporate-owned media for sale to the highest bidder, the need for independent news has never been this urgent,” says DN.

Some criticize DN and see its independence as compromised by being in receipt of Ford and Rockefeller Foundation money.⁵ DN does not acknowledge receipt of foundation money on its donation appeal page.

At best DN can be called liberal media; nonetheless, as with any media (including this one) open-minded skepticism serves media consumers best. DN’s progressivist credentials are questionable considering its open support for the imperialist attack on Libya and its proclivity for eschewing corporate media but turning to corporate media figures as experts. In the present case DN turned to the New York Times, a newspaper that frequent DN guest Noam Chomsky calls a “masochistic exercise” in reading.

The Etiquette of Apology

If I pass by someone in close quarters, and my shoulder nudges that person, I should hope that I would immediately respond with an apology. Little incidents like that can occur in crowded confines or when one is not paying sufficient attention. A simple sorry usually smooths the situation over.

Etiquette is the art of decency; it is an essential part of the social fabric providing a set of rules/guidelines for human-human interaction. Common etiquette requires that when you wrong someone you acknowledge the wrong by apologizing for it

Furthermore, an apology should be forthcoming without prodding because an important element of the apology is sincerity. A genuine apology cannot be coerced. It is quite difficult to coerce hyperempire, and closing a border and a drone base will not cajole an apology.

Reparations would be another important element of an apology. When, through one’s wrongdoing, damage is caused, that damage should be atoned for, in an as meaningfully as possible manner, by financial compensation or other satisfactory (to the aggrieved party) compensatory manner.

Many tributaries, very tricky to navigate, flow from this main current of public avowals and disavowals; not least, must an apology lead to reparation, if it is to be to be at all meaningful? That is, without a subsequent act of reparation or restitution, can it be fully constituted as an apology? Or is the performance of a speech act something that itself makes change?⁶

Eight days had passed before US president Barack Obama called the president of Pakistan to express regret for the killing of 24 Pakistani troops by NATO forces.⁷

In his refusal to apologize, Obama fits into the company of George H.W. Bush who while vice-president said, “I will never apologize for the United States, ever. I don’t care what the facts are.”⁸

1. See Elise Labott, “Pakistan military insists NATO attack was deliberate,” CNN, 16 December 2011.
2. News Release, “Department of Defense Statement Regarding Investigation Results into Pakistan Cross-Border Incident,” U.S. Department of Defense, 22 December 2001.
3. See “U.S. Admits Fault in Fatal Bombing that Killed 24 Pakistani Troops,” Democracy Now!, 22 December 2011. “NATO Forced to Admit Air Strikes Killed Dozens of Libyan Civilians, Contradicting Initial Denials,” Democracy Now!, 22 December 2011.
4. See No. 44, “50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons,” Brookings. See also Kim Petersen, “Nuclear Tragedy; The Struggle against Colonialism and Imperialism in Kalaallit Nunaat: Part 2,” Dissident Voice, 7 May 2007 for a nuclear explosion that occurred near the US military base in Thule, Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) in 1968. It was also denied by the Pentagon.
5. See bob feldman, “Alternative Media Censorship: Sponsored by CIA’s Ford Foundation?” questions, questions…
6. Marina Warner, “Sorry: the present state of apology,” Open Democracy, 7 November 2002.
7. Richard Wolf, “Obama regrets Pakistani troop deaths but doesn’t apologize,” USA Today, 4 December 2011.
8. Quoted in “Perspectives,” Newsweek (15 August 1988): 15.

It makes one wonder: on which side of the looking glass are we?

If one wandered to the other side of the looking glass — where up is down and down is up, where left is right and right is left, where good is bad and bad is good — what would one find? How does imperialism look like on the other side of the mirror?

Just imagine what would have been the reaction of the United States if Iran was running a covert spy operation against it and refused to discuss the matter?¹

What would have been the reaction if an Iranian drone had been brought down/crashed in the continental United States? One can easily imagine the outcry and indignation. It would certainly be described as a clear-cut casus belli. What if the Iranian reaction to its “lost” drone were merely to deny the authenticity of the drone?² Or what if it the reaction were to deny its drone had been brought down by the US?³ ,⁴

What if the reaction were merely to downplay US acquisition of Iranian technology?³ What if the Iranian reaction to the loss of its surveillance craft⁵ were unapologetic, as if spying on a sovereign nation was its right?⁶

What if this were one of many preceding drone tresspasses?⁷

What would the reaction be if Iran built a case against the US based on dollops of disinformation, manipulating international personnel charged with nonproliferation responsibility, and targeted the US economy by pressing for worldwide sanctions⁸ for failing to live up to many clauses in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty including the preamble which states,

Desiring to further the easing of international tension and the strengthening of trust between States in order to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery pursuant to a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control…⁹

In the “real world,” the US has continued to maintain and update its nuclear stockpile in clear contravention of the NPT.¹⁰

What if the Iranian president and foreign minister all declared that “no options were off the table” in how to deal with the nuclear threat posed by the United States?¹¹

Imagine if Iran had attempted to shut down nuclear facilities in the US and Israel with a computer virus?¹² How would the US and Israel have responded?

Imagine if Iranian black operatives were assassinating nuclear scientists in Israel while denying it all back home “with a smile.”¹³ Imagine if explosions mysteriously erupted from Dimona?¹⁴ What would be the reaction in Israel – especially if a former Iranian head of state security hinted his state was behind it all acting as “the hand of Allah”?¹⁵

What if part of the justification for destruction of Israeli nuclear facilities was that Israeli-made drones were used by Iran’s nemesis, the US, to overfly its neighbour state, Iraq?¹⁶ ,¹⁷

If, as a part of modern historical record, Iran had plotted and helped bring about the overthrow of an elected US government and then replaced it with an authoritarian monarch kept in place with a draconian state security, how would Americans view the Iranian state?¹⁸

If everything detailed here has happened mirror opposite against Iran, how then is it that a serial aggressor state like the US¹⁹ has any moral clout to denounce Iran? How is that Israel, a serial violator of international law, has any moral standing to pronounce on Iran?

Is the United Nations not based on the “sovereign equality of all its Members” as stated in the UN Charter?²⁰ Why then should the reaction among UN members differ in response to similar provocations?

How does one state justify its possession of weapons of mass destruction while denying other states the same right of possession? What happened to Iraq and Libya when they gave up possessing WMD? What has happened to North Korea which gained possession of nuclear bombs? What conclusions should the Iranian state reach from all of this?

Does each state not have the inalienable right to self-defense equal to that of other states?²¹

1. Scott Shane and David E. Sanger, “Drone Crash in Iran Reveals Secret U.S. Surveillance Effort,” New York Times, 7 December 2011.
2. CNN Wire Staff, “U.S. officials, analysts differ on whether drone in Iran TV video is real,” CNN.com, 9 December 2011.
3. Laura Rozen, “Iran releases video of downed U.S. spy drone–looking intact,” Yahoo News, 8 December 2011.
4. On our side of the mirror, the Christian Science Monitor had the gumption to admit “a significant loss for the US” from the downing of its drone in Iran. Scott Peterson, “Downed US drone: How Iran caught the ‘beast’,” Christian Science Monitor, 9 December 2011.
5. It needs to be acknowledged and emphasized that drones are killing machines. See Lesley Docksey, “Armed Drones: Time to Call a Halt,” Dissident Voice, 19 July 2011.
6. After all, does Iran not have the same right to verify US compliance with the NPT as the US assumes for itself?
7. “Iran ‘shoots down Western spy drones’ in Gulf,” BBC News, 2 January 2011.
8. See Tom Burghardt, “Washington’s Countdown to War: Target Iran,” Dissident Voice, 26 November 2011.
9. “The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).”
10. Hans Kristiansen, “The Nuclear Weapons Modernization Budget,” FAS Strategic Security Blog, 17 February 2011. The US nuclear stockpile is estimated to be a little more than 5000 nuclear weapons in 2012. Hans Kristiansen, “Estimates of the US Nuclear Weapons Stockpile, 2007 and 2012,” FAS Strategic Security Blog, 2 May 2007.
11. See Norman Solomon, “The Awful Truth About Hillary, Barack, John … and Whitewash,” Dissident Voice, 14 April 2007.
12. James Hider, “Computer virus used to sabotage Iran’s nuclear plans ‘built by US and Israel’,” The Australian, 17 January 2011.
13. Matthew Cole and Mark Schone, “Who Is Killing Iran’s Nuclear Scientists?” ABC News, 26 July 2011.
14. Documents from the United States National Archives, “Dimona Revealed,” Israel and the Bomb.
15. See Corky Siemaszko, “Bombing of Iranian nuke facilities no accident?” New York Daily News, 30 November 2011.
16. Safa Haeri “Iranian-Made Drones Flew Over Israel,” Iran Press Service, 9 November 2004. Note: Haeri is an Iranian-born exile who agitates against the Iranian government. Thus, despite the name, Iran Press Service is not an Iran-based media organization.
17. Meanwhile staunch the US, uses Israeli-made drones next door in Iraq. Steve Weizman, “Maker: Israeli ‘Drones’ Fly Over Iraq,” AP, 19 March 2007.
18. William Blum, “Iran 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings,” excerpted from Killing Hope, Third World Traveler.
19. See William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2000).
20. “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.” Article 2.1, Charter of the United Nations.
21. See Kim Petersen, “The Inalienable Right to Self Defense: Balancing the Power,” Dissident Voice, 27 February 2006.

United States president Barack Obama has promised “hope,” “change,” comprehensive healthcare reform, shutting down the Guantánamo gulag, the redeployment of US troops in Iraq, to take on the “fat cats” of Wall Street, and a host of other unfulfilled, ignored, insincere utterances.¹ Obama is just one of many politicians throughout history who have learned that lies can sway masses of people. Republican presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich is no stranger to the persuasive power of the lie.

In an interview to be broadcast Monday on The Jewish Channel, Gingrich said that Palestininans [sic]² are an “invented” people without claim to their own state.

When asked if he is a Zionist, Gingrich replied: “Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. We have invented the Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab people, and they had the chance to go many places.”

Dr. Ismail Zayid, who was born in Palestine, responded to me a few years ago on the topic of who the Palestinians are:

The Palestinian people of today are the direct descendents of the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Jebusites and other Arab tribes that lived in this land, of historic Palestine, since history began. Professor Maxime Rodinson, Professor of History at the Sorbonne University in Paris, and he is Jewish, stated in 1968: “The Arab population of Palestine was native in all the senses of the word, and their roots in Palestine can be traced back at least forty centuries.”

The British historian, H.G. Wells, responding to the Balfour Declaration, stated: “If it is proper to ‘reconstitute’ a Jewish state, which has not existed for two thousand years, why not go back another thousand years and reconstitute the Canaanite state? The Canaanites, unlike the Jews, are still there.”

In essence, the Palestinian people of today are the indigenous people of this land and, hence, their right to self-determination and statehood in their native land is in complete accordance with international law and the UN Charter.

The Israelis are not the original inhabitants of Palestine. They came as invaders. The land of Palestine, because of its geographic location, was exposed, throughout history, to a variety of invaders including the Hebrew tribes, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Turks and the British and finally the Israelis of today. The Hebrew tribes [The Israelites], as invaders have no more legitimate claim to this land than the Greeks, Romans, Turks etc. If conquering invaders, in occupation for a period of time, have any legitimate claim to a territory or country, then the Romans should claim England as their land, and the Arabs should claim Spain as their land, and so on.

I don’t know where Gingrich gets his information from. It sounds like former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir: “There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? … It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.”³ Or was it from Jane Peter’s From Time Immemorial which claimed that Palestine was an empty land. Peter’s work was revealed as a fraud by Norman Finkelstein.⁴ Or was it the plagiarized version of Peter’s fraud by Alan Dershowitz⁵ Chutzpah, whose academic transgression was exposed again by Norman Finkelstein.⁶

Where does the logic of Gingrich arise and where does it lead? It is also true that there also was no Israel as a state. Before European invaders came to Turtle Island there was no Canada or the United States. Indisputably, there were no Canadians or Americans. Does Gingrich, therefore, by the same token regard Canadians and Americans⁷ as an “invention.” Did Gingrich, perhaps, hit upon the use of the word “invention” from the title of a book by Israeli historian Shlomo Sand who had the academic fidelity and courage to write The Invention of the Jewish People. In his book, Sand delves into Jewish historiography and states that ethnicity is not a shared trait of Jewry and the claim to Palestine is not historically valid.⁸

Gingrich even surprised The Jewish Channel interviewer, Steven I. Weiss: “It’s a comment I’ve heard before because I’ve covered the far right in the Jewish community and the pro-Israel community. But I was surprised to hear a mainstream Republican figure say it…” Newt Gingrich is mainstream Republican? One wonders what the right wing of the Republican Party sounds like.

Gingrich appears to have read Mein Kampf wherein Adolf Hitler wrote, “… all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward..” In other words, it appears as if Gingrich and his pals believe that repeating the canard of “no Palestinians” will reify the lie.⁹

1. For more see “Promise Broken rulings on the The Obameter,” PolitiFact.com.
2. The right-wing, Zionist-supporting Washington Post can’t even get the spelling of P-a-l-e-s-t-i-n-i-a-n right one day after publishing. Amy Gardner, “Gingrich says Palestianians [sic] are an ‘invented’ people,” Washington Post, 9 December 2011.
3. Quoted in Sunday Times (15 June 1969) and Washington Post (16 June 1969). In Wikiquotes. Upon Meir’s death, her life-long friend Lou Kadar told journalist Alan Hart: “Golda made me promise to tell you, but not until she was dead, that as soon as those words left her lips, she knew they were the silliest damn thing she had ever said!” In Alan Hart, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews: Volume One: The False Messiah (Clarity Press, 2009; review.) This writer considers it extremely odd that someone would want to live the rest of her life with “the silliest damn thing” she ever said uncorrected. In the same book, Hart revealed the sinister side of Meir when he asked her on-air: “You are saying that if ever Israel was in danger of being defeated on the battlefield, it would be prepared to take the region and even the whole world down with it?” Meir’s response: “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
4. Famed scholar Noam Chomsky praised the rigor of Finkelstein’s research:

   … From Time Immemorial. It was a big scholarly-looking book with lots of footnotes, which purported to show that the Palestinians were all recent immigrants … And it was very popular — it got literally hundreds of rave reviews, and no negative reviews: the Washington Post, the New York Times, everybody was just raving about it. Here was this book which proved that there were really no Palestinians! Of course, the implicit message was, if Israel kicks them all out there’s no moral issue, because they’re just recent immigrants who came in because the Jews had built up the country. … That was the big intellectual hit for that year: Saul Bellow, Barbara Tuchman, everybody was talking about it as the greatest thing since chocolate cake. Well, one graduate student at Princeton, a guy named Norman Finkelstein, started reading through the book. He was interested in the history of Zionism, and as he read the book he was kind of surprised by some of the things it said. He’s a very careful student, and he started checking the references — and it turned out that the whole thing was a hoax, it was completely faked: probably it had been put together by some intelligence agency … Noam Chomsky, “The Fate of an Honest Intellectual,” Excerpted from Understanding Power (The New Press, 2002): 244-248.

5. Adding to the shame of having been caught citing from a work without proper attribution is that the book the Harvard law professor chose as his source, was noted by Chomsky in 2002 as having been dropped from discourse among American intellectuals because it was an “embarrassment.”
6. See Matthew Abraham, “Review Essay: Norman Finkelstein’s Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, AARGH Reprints, December 2005.
7. And so on, all the way down to Tierra del Fuego for the rest of the European invaders in whoever’s territory they found themselves.
8. See review by Jack Ross, “Shlomo Sand’s ‘The Invention of the Jewish People,’” Mondoweiss, 10 October 2009.
9. Adolf Hitler, “War Propaganda,” Mein Kampf, Volume 1 (1925).

There is a hint of guarded optimism in the air, and it seems like an inspiring time for progressives. At a time when so many people voice defiance against the status quo, it seems like a propitious moment for progressives to stake out a new revolutionary path — a path not laid down by the establishment preceding them.

In the progressivist realm, Norman Solomon is a well-known figure. Yet, has Solomon embraced the swirling winds of change?

Solomon must have pondered many choices available to a well-educated and articulate man as himself. For instance, have any opportunities been opened up for progressives to seize in the electoral arena? Should progressives even participate as candidates in the highly rigged system of elections that some people refer to as democracy. Do people really think that a system which elects 90+ percent of the highest campaign-spending candidates is democracy?¹

Solomon has decided to participate in the farce of elections. That left the choice of being a candidate dedicated to the reform of a corrupt political body from within or to participate in kick-starting or reviving a progressivist political movement without the corrupt baggage. It seems unlikely that Solomon even considered the latter option as his candidature appears opportunistic. He made his announcement when it became known that the Democratic incumbent Lynn Woolsey would not stand for re-election to the US Congress.

Robert Jensen wrote about Solomon’s declared candidature.²

One DV reader took exception to the article. He wrote,

Are you having an attack of dementia? Norman Solomon? You might as well post a piece praising Obama, they both stand for the same bullshit. wake up. Jezuz.

Solomon’s record is clear, he’s a DemoRat operative. All that crap about “green” and “pwogwessif” is just cover for his real job: misleading the dull of wit.

First, I agree with the basic sentiment expressed by the reader, although I would not impugn the integrity of Solomon. Second, I would choose a different phraseology. Third, regarding the tactics of Solomon, I respect the right of readers to reach their own conclusions about what progressivism really is and how best to attain the aims of progressivism.

It is clear that the Democratic Party is part of the political-corporate duopoly in the US. The Democrats are a warmongering party serving elitist interests that differs from the Republican Party ever so slightly in that they are less open about their corporate and militaristic ties.

Solomon touted Barack Obama — the hyped “hope” and “change” candidate — for the presidency in 2008, and when Obama demonstrated himself to be anything but the Great Progressivist Hope, Solomon complained. Now he wants to join Obama’s team. How does Solomon reconcile the contradictions?

“I’m skeptical about election campaigns that abandon principles, but I’m also skeptical about campaigns that have no hope of winning and that are only for protest or public education,” Solomon said.

With all due respect, I’m skeptical of Mr. Solomon. Before Obama, Solomon also supported the presidential candidacy of Democrat John Kerry. Solomon and colleague Jeff Cohen pointed to leftist author Tariq Ali’s support for Kerry. Ali opined that since an Al Gore was not a neo-con, his administration would not have attacked Iraq, and presumably since Kerry was not a neo-con, he would be more dovish than his opponent George W. Bush. The argument is severely flawed because facts contradict it. The Bill Clinton-Al Gore administration enforced genocidal sanctions against Iraq and ordered bombing campaigns in Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. Kerry’s rhetoric suggests that his administration would have been just as violent as the Clinton-Gore administration.³

Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama. There has been no let-up in warring by either the Democrats or the Republicans. Moreover, they both support the neoliberalism which oversees the transfer of wealth from the have-nots to the haves.

Despite the record of the Democrats, Solomon argues the solution is more progressive-minded politicians: “Having John Conyers, Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Jim McGovern, Raul Grijalva, Lynn Woolsey in Congress is important. We need more of those sorts of legislators as part of the political landscape.”

However, Kucinich is a good example of a progressivist voice being drowned out by the Democratic Party’s corporate cacophony.⁴ What makes Solomon think his fate would be any different than the political veteran Kucinich? The fact is that Solomon has shown the same willingness to compromise progressivist principles as has Kucinich by supporting the candidature of Kerry and now Obama.

Lesser evilism is a large part of the problem.⁵ As long as people continue to confine themselves to the choice between neoliberal warmonger 1 and neoliberal warmonger 2 (as Solomon and some other “progressives” advocate), then why would the system change? Do the progressives have the cash for the highest-spending-candidates-win electoral system? Solomon claims to be running a grassroots campaign. I’m skeptical.

Lesser evilism has not brought about change, and part of the reason is that the term is misleading. It is just plain evilism (there is no lesser) — whether it is a Democrat or a Republican administration.⁶

The reader added,

Now I consider the problem presented by Solomon, Moveon, Obamism among African Americans, Trumka and others claiming to represent the interests of the “American People” while really working for the interests of the SuperRich to be a top priority, a key obstacle, maybe THE key obstacle to efforts to oppose the current insanity and all its evils.

I agree.

Forget change! It is past time for a revolution. It is past time for an end to warring, an end to poverty, and an end to inequality. Hope is not enough. The Occupy movements must stand firm. Either people power wins or it is the continuance of a top-down society where the elitists wage war, profit from corporate greed, and oppress Indigenous peoples, minorities, Palestinians, workers, and the poor.

The stamina and solidarity required for a full-fledged revolution will be demanding, but then living on the trickle-down droplets from the so-called 1% isn’t a cakewalk either.

1. See Communications, “Money Wins Presidency and 9 of 10 Congressional Races in Priciest U.S. Election Ever,” OpenSecrets.org, 5 November 2008.
2. Robert Jensen, “Occupy Congress: Norman Solomon sees a role for progressive legislators,” Dissident Voice, 28 November 2011.
3. See Kim Petersen, “The Futility of Revolving Warmonger Regimes: Time for the Revolution,” Dissident Voice, 14 August 2004.
4. See Kim Petersen, “Same Shit Different Asshole!” Dissident Voice, 19 February 2004.
5. See Kim Petersen, “The Utter Futility of Lesser Evilism,” Dissident Voice, 24 May 2007.
6. See Kim Petersen, “Evilism: There Is No Lesser: The Left Can Pose Its Own Challenges to Ron Paul,” Dissident Voice, 29 July 2011. “… there is little substantive difference between the Republicans and Democrats; they are both corporate dominated and controlled parties. As futile as lesser evilism is, it is also futile to talk about there being a lesser evilism between the two utterly dominant political parties in the United States.”

Not that you lied to me but that I no longer believe you has shaken me.

– Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

“This morning we reminded the Israeli ambassador how much we deplore the consequences of this raid for the head of our consulate and his family,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.

Immediately a pretext was added: “While we recognize Israel’s need to ensure its security, …”

Why is it that the security of the perpetrator of violence is emphasized but the victim of the violence’s security is not mentioned? Why is the violence deplored when one’s own group members die at the hands of violence but so little is said when out-group victims die? Many would call this racism.

Gaza is under a siege that is illegal and immoral. It is immoral because of the principle which holds that any actions against an enemy must be targeted solely against that enemy such that civilians are not put at risk. The Israeli actions target indiscriminately — not separating combatants from non-combatants.

As for Israeli violence against Palestinians, any and all violence from the Israelis is unjustifiable and immoral — even on the pretext of Palestinians having fired rockets into Israel.

Why? Because Israel was established through the dispossession of an indigenous people, the Palestinians, whose land was occupied. Only if dispossession and occupation are deemed acceptable actions can the responses of Israeli be justified. Hence, since the Palestinians were dispossessed, and since their land was occupied, then Palestinian actions against the siege, dispossession, and occupation are justifiable. The principle is that the dispossessed and occupied have the inalienable right to resist such dispossession and occupation. If the dispossessed/occupied/oppressed do not have the right to resist, then what is to stop dispossession, occupation, and oppression?

Lies Do Not Shake Friendships in Empire

As French president Nicolas Sarkozy made known in Cannes recently, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “a liar” and a person he “cannot stand.” Sarkozy subsequently wrote to Netanyahu to affirm his friendship, despite their “differing views on the Middle East.”

Their differences are mild in comparison to their similarities. Israel and France are allies. What does this mean for the Palestinians? It does not matter because the Palestinians are people in the way of Eretz Israel.

Empire is not built on moral principles — and lies, even between imperialist allies, are just part of Empire’s endgame.

In his latest article, Haaretz writer Gideon Levy turns his focus from Israeli crimes against Palestinians to Iran which threatens no Palestinians.² So what is Levy’s problem with Iran?

Levy writes, “Iran will apparently have an atom bomb [what does Levy base this on? Are mere words enough to adduce his assertion?], and that is very bad news.”

Nuclear weapons are bad news, but Levy does decry the “very bad news” of Israel possessing nuclear weapons and upgrading its stockpile of nuclear weapons. Instead Israel is criticized for double standards and hypocrisy — something Iran cannot be criticized for regarding nuclear weapons. Levy does not discuss whether Iran would feel any need to pursue (without acknowledging that it does so) nuclear weapons if other countries, such as Israel and the United States, did not possess such weapons. Levy did not mention that Iran supports a Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone unlike Israel. Why omit such relevant facts?

Then Levy says of Iran, “It is a country that sows evil.” Levy’s sentence can only be construed as racist in sentiment. Levy does criticize the crimes of his own country against Palestinians, but has he ever criticized his country to the extent of saying it sows evil? Maybe. One wonders, however, how is it that Iran sows evil? Does Iran occupy another people’s land? Does Iran commit massacres against other peoples? Does Iran initiate wars against neighboring countries? Does it initiate wars against any countries? How is it then that Iran might compare in the slightest to Israel when it comes to sowing evil?

Levy adds to the demonization of Iran while purporting not to do so: “There is no need to add words about its dreadful threats or its dark regime – the Israeli media does so more than enough.”

Why is the Iranian government a “dark regime”? And if the Iranian government is a “dark regime,” then how much darker (or in Levy’s mind, “lighter”) is the Israeli regime?

Levy asserts: “True, Iran is threatening Israel and the United States, …”

Where is the evidence? Where are these threats by Iran? Good journalists back up what they say.

Yet Levy repeats his unsubstantiated claim “… that Iran is threatening us, Israel …” Either the state of Iran is incredibly stupid to challenge a state believed armed with over 200 nuclear weapons and backed by the hyperempire which has used nuclear weapons, or Levy is propagandizing.

Levy concludes his piece with a question: “But does Israel want in any way to resemble Iran?”

Levy is demonizing. Without offering one reason for his ad hominem aimed at Iran, and although criticizing Israel, Levy has nonetheless attempted to paint Iran as the “dark regime” that the occupation/apartheid/aggressive regime in Tel Aviv must avoid becoming – despite Iran not being an occupier, a racist state, or an aggressive state.

Iran deserves criticism on social justice issues (for example, homophobia, gender issues, and capital punishment), and so do many other states. These issues do not rise to the level of opprobrium that state-sanctioned racism and discrimination, slow-motion genocide, dispossession and occupation of an indigenous people merit.

Assertion is empty rhetoric, but that is what Levy proffers? Such “journalism” is an insult to critically thinking readers. So why did Levy engage in such shoddy “journalism”? Whose purposes does Levy’s writing serve coming as it does when many speak of an impending Israel-US attack on Iran?

Demonization is not meant to correct an errant country; demonization, itself, likelier has a more sinister intent.

1. Kim Petersen, “Subtle Loyalties to Zionism,” Dissident Voice, 4 July 2006; “Talk Is Cheap, Human Life Is Not: Justice and Freedom for Palestinians Now!” Dissident Voice, 22 December 2008.
2. Gideon Levy, “What Israel can learn from Iran,” Haaretz, 10 November 2011.

If one believes in peace, then it seems the proper thing is to revere the warriors for peace. Yet those are the people who are disparaged by the media, whose movements are brutalized by state police. The warriors who head off to far-flung lands that pose no threat to Europe, the United States, or Canada — why should they be lauded? The warring soldiers of today are — by and large — indoctrinated killers, not protectors of peace or high principles.

People “volunteer” for the grist for the soldiery today. Iraq, Haiti, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan … have nothing to do with defence; it is all about warring and killing. The multitude of killings, the war crimes, and the destruction of the aforementioned countries provides ample evidence of this.

Iraq, Haiti, Libya, and Afghanistan, Pakistan found (and find) themselves victimized by the military weaponry of the West. Fighting in close quarters is eschewed for fighting from a great distance via planes, ships at sea, bombs, and drones high in the sky. Such push-button soldiery has little to do with bravery.

Furthermore, if fighters should be remembered for their supposed “heroism” (and I do not deny that some acts of heroism occur), then they should also be remembered — and reviled — for commission of war crimes, massacres, and other wicked deeds; and they should incur whatever punishment is deserved.

Is there a day of remembrance for the Somali teenager — Shidane Arone — brutally murdered by members of Canada’s “elite” Canadian Airborne Regiment? (Graphic photo)

Whose freedom have all these soldiers for past wars really been fighting for? Is it the freedom of the 99% or the 1%? Whose cause does mind-numbing patriotism serve? The 99% or the 1%? Are the 1% putting their sons and daughters on the frontlines? All these wars have been fought over the years and what has the result been? A greater and greater concentration of wealth in the hands of the wealthy few. Is such a societal outcome really worth fighting for?

When schools commemorate Remembrance Day, what are they really commemorating? Is it not an inculcation of warrior sentiment into the younger generation? I found myself having Chinese students being exposed to the Canadian tradition of commemorating their warriors.

Fine, that is what happens in Canada, but I have to be honest with students. I am opposed to the nonsense of celebrating warring and warriors. I made that known to my students.

I presented my Chinese students with the words of one of their own, Lin Yutang. The renowned writer Lin said, “[Chinese] hate war, and always will hate war. Good people never fight in China. For ‘good iron is not made into nails, and good men are not made soldiers.’”

I am adamantly opposed to indoctrination or inculcation of any sort. I always encourage my students to doubt what I say, especially when it runs counter to that told to them in wider society. I urge them to ask questions, research, and form their own conclusions. I encourage them to challenge whatever views I (or anyone else) may present. I inform them that if I wish to be a critical thinker, then I must yield to superior facts, logic, or morals.

If educators encourage critical thinking, then they must be open to the most divergent views, not just those that cluster around so-called conventional representations.

Who should society and its education system laud and commemorate: the gun-toting soldiers or the fighters for peace?