Maureen Murphy
Antiwar

Maureen Murphy speaks at Dec., 23,
2010 press conference (Fight Back!)

I have been summoned to appear before a federal grand jury in Chicago on Jan. 25. But I will not testify, even at the risk of being put in jail for contempt of court, because I believe that our most fundamental rights as citizens are at stake.

I am one of 23 antiwar, labor, and solidarity activists in Chicago and throughout the Midwest who are facing a grand jury as part of an investigation into “material support for foreign terrorist organizations.” No crime has been identified. No arrests have been made. And when it raided several prominent organizers’ homes and offices on Sept. 24, the FBI acknowledged that there is no immediate threat to the American public. So what is this investigation really about?

The activists who have been ensnared in this fishing net work with different groups to end the U.S. wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to end U.S. military aid for Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, and to end U.S. military aid to Colombia, which has a shocking record of repression and human rights abuses. All of us have publicly and peacefully dedicated our lives to social justice and advocating for more just and less deadly U.S. foreign policy.

I spent a year and a half working for a human rights organization in the occupied West Bank, where I witnessed how Israel established “facts on the ground” at the expense of international law and Palestinian rights. I saw the wall, settlements, and checkpoints and the ugly reality of life under Israeli occupation, which is bankrolled by the U.S. government on the taxpayer’s dime. Many of us who are facing the grand jury have traveled to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Colombia to learn about the human rights situation and the impact of U.S. foreign policy in those places so we may educate fellow Americans upon our return and work to build movements to end our government’s harmful intervention abroad.

Travel for such purposes should be protected by the First Amendment. But new legislation now allows the U.S. government to consider such travel as probable cause for invasive investigations that disrupt our movements and our lives.

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Bill Van Auken
WSWS

The Palestine papers released this week by Al Jazeera provide documentary confirmation of what is becoming plain to millions of Palestinians: the nationalist project of building an independent Palestinian state in the occupied territories has become transformed into a new means of their oppression.

These documents provide a graphic account of the “peace process”—a two-decade-long fraud perpetrated by Washington upon not only the Palestinians, but the entire world.

The US-brokered talks were initiated in 1988, when Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yassir Arafat agreed to recognize Israel, guarantee its security, and renounce the armed struggle with which the PLO had been long identified. The “process” was further institutionalized with the Oslo Accords of 1993, which set out the “two-state solution” to the Palestinian-Israeli question and laid the foundations for the Palestine Authority (PA). That year saw the infamous hand-shake with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, when Arafat protested that he was being ordered to perform a “striptease” on the White House lawn.

From the outset, US imperialism pursued these negotiations not out of some commitment to ameliorating the conditions confronting millions of Palestinians crushed under Israeli occupation or relegated to poverty and statelessness in the refugee camps of Lebanon and Jordan. Rather, the aim of successive administrations, Republican and Democratic alike, has been to facilitate US intervention in the Middle East and groom a section of the Palestinian leadership as an instrument for suppressing the struggles of the Palestinian masses.

As the newly released documents verify, Washington pursued its “peace process” strategy with utter ruthlessness and violence, backing every crime carried out by its Israeli ally and treating Palestinian negotiators with unconcealed contempt.

For their part, the Palestinian negotiators loyal to PA President Mahmoud Abbas were prepared to capitulate completely on all the issues that the Palestinian movement had once described as “red lines.” This included ceding virtually all of East Jerusalem to Zionist settlements, renouncing the right of return for all but a token 10,000 of the five million Palestinian refugees, and agreeing to support the ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of Israeli Arabs slated for removal in order to guarantee a “Jewish state.”

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Stephen Lendman

It's official, or nearly so, Haaretz, on January 25 headlining, "Hezbollah's PM pick wins majority backing as Hariri supporters hold 'day of wrath,' " saying:

Hezbollah-backed Najib Mikati, a Sunni billionaire, became new prime minister after getting 68 votes, a majority in Lebanon's 128-member parliament. Caretaker PM Saad Hariri got 60. As a result, Hezbollah "is now in position to control Lebanon's next government. The move has set off angry protests and drew warnings from the US that its support could be in jeopardy."

"Sunni blood is boiling," chanted protestors. Burning Mikati pictures, they said they won't serve in a coalition government, adding that anyone allying with Hezbollah is a traitor. After being appointed, he said:

"I extend my hand to everyone....This is a democratic process. I want to rescue my country....My actions (as PM) will speak for themselves."

"I affirmed to the president that cooperation will be complete between us to form a new government which the Lebanese want, a government to maintain the unity of their country and their sovereignty, achieve the solidarity of its people, protect the coexistence formula and respect the constitutional rules."

However, nothing in Lebanon is ever simple, especially with Washington and Israel often intervening politically, economically and/or violently.

Commenting briefly, State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said Washington has "great concerns about a government within which Hezbollah plays a leading role," adding that relations and Washington-supplied aid will be affected.

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Stephen Lendman

Make no mistake. He didn't quit. He was pushed, the final straw perhaps being the January 18 FCC-approved Comcast-NBC Merger. Its chairman/CEO Brian Roberts co-chaired the 2000 Republican Convention host committee, and COO Stephen Burke/now NBC Universal CEO tilts heavily to Republicans. According to Public Citizen and Think Progress, he raised at least $200,000 for Bush's 2004 campaign, served on his Council on Science and Technology, and may wish to make MSNBC another Fox, despite pledging no "interference with NBC Universal's news operations."

Think Progress asked:

"Why would Comcast be interested in silencing progressive voices?" Because it opposes issues they support, including Net Neutrality, stiffer media regulation, and restraints on being able to buy telecommunications and media companies freely.

Despite having MSNBC's highest ratings, Olbermann's gone like (once top-rated) Phil Donahue ahead of Operation Iraqi Freedom. At the time, a leaked network February 25, 2003 memo to All Your TV.com, said he presented a

"difficult public face for NBC in a time of war....He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." It outlined a nightmare scenario of his show becoming "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity," promoting war, not diplomacy and peace.

For those on the far right, Olbermann, like Donahue, became too hot to handle, personality issues mattering less than staunchly right wing politics. Expect MSNBC to feature more of it, shifting more to the right like Fox and CNN, racing to the bottom to see who's more pro-business, pro-war, and anti-left of center ideologically. MSNBC's remaining prime time hosts take note.

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David Michael Green
The Regressive Antidote

Civility in politics is – pardon the anti-pun – all the rage nowadays.

Go figure. I guess assassinating members of the ruling class tends to have that kind of sobering effect.

So everyone’s talking nicey-nice, certain members of Congress will be sitting together during this week’s State of the Union despite their differing party affiliations, and most (but not quite) everybody has avoided calling each other Nazis for a week or two.

That’s cool. You know, I’m all for civility in politics. I’ve been disgusted and sometimes horrified at what has become of our national discourse these last decades. Shit like a multi-draft-deferral war-avoider, for example, running for the US Senate by branding a triple-amputee Vietnam vet as weak on national security, an’ all. Like that kind of incivility.

So yeah, can we and should we disagree more politely in American politics? How does whatshername put it? ‘You betcha.’

What I’m not down for, however, is civility that is actually a mask for capitulation.

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