Stephen Lendman

'The recent growth-burst is built on monetary and fiscal policies
which are wildly expansionary, wholly unsustainable and will surely
soon come to an end.'

On May 6, headlines cheered the new jobs report, New York Times writer Motoko Rich headlining, "Payrolls Show Strong Growth but Jobless Rate Rises," saying:

"For three straight months, the nation's employers have delivered solid job growth, easing some concerns that the economy could be slowing."

Bloomberg.com's Timothy Homan said, at 244,000, "American employers in April added more jobs than forecast....indicating the world's largest economy is weathering the impact of higher fuel prices."

Wall Street Journal writer Sara Murray wrote:

"Job engine shifts to higher gear (as) companies cranked up hiring in April to the fastest pace in five years...."

In fact, labor force participation held steady at 64.2% for the fourth consecutive month, down from 66% in 2006. Moreover, economist Jack Rasmus estimates 25 million unemployed, a number showing downturn, not growth. He also explained that considerably more workers left the labor force than entered it, saying:

A recovering jobs market "does not experience that kind of massive number of discouraged workers leaving the labor force. Quite the opposite. A truly recovering labor market is characterized by large numbers of discouraged workers re-entering the labor force. Something else is going on here."

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Hedy Epstein
Move Over AIPAC

At the end of one of my first journeys to the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2004, I endured a shocking experience at Ben-Gurion Airport. I never imagined that Israeli security forces would abuse a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, but they held me for five hours, and strip-searched and cavity-searched every part of my naked body. The only shame these security officials expressed was to turn their badges around so that their names were invisible.

The only conceivable purpose for this gross violation of my bodily integrity was to humiliate and terrify me. But it had just the opposite effect. It made me more determined to speak out against abuses by the Israeli government and military.

Yet my own experience, unpleasant as it was, is nothing compared to the indignities and abuses heaped on Palestinians year after year. Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is based not on equal rights and fair play, but on what Human Rights Watch has termed a “two-tier” legal system – in other words, apartheid, with one set of laws for Jews and a harsh, oppressive set of laws for Palestinians.

This, however, is the legal system and security state AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) will defend from May 22-24 at its annual conference. And, despite this grim reality, members of Congress will converge to hail AIPAC and Israel. The Palestinians’ lack of freedom is bound to be obscured at the AIPAC conference with its obsessive focus on security and shunting aside of anything to do with upholding fundamental Palestinian rights.

Several years ago near Der Beilut in the West Bank, I saw the Israeli police turn a water cannon on our nonviolent protest. As it happened, I recalled Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 and wondered why an ostensibly democratic society responded to peaceable assembly by trying, literally, to drown out the voice of our protest.

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