Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Is Ferguson the American Spring?

Another Long Hot Summer

Is Ferguson the American Spring?*

by JOHN HALLE
Some on the left are viewing the Ferguson uprising as the (the) long awaited American Spring in which resistance to the routine murder of black youth becomes the wedge cracking open the (a) system revealing itself to be rotten to the core.
It may become that. What happened to Michael Brown was all too typical and while his life was cut short by real bullets, so too does an entire generation see its prospects figuratively murdered as Wall Street consigns it to a future of permanent debt slavery abetted by militarized police forces crushing any attempts at mobilizing in opposition to it.
If a movement can connect the dots then it has a chance to galvanize (a movement of) the 99% back into the streets.
But there will be a lot of opposition and much of it will come from those who Brittany Cooper referred to as ”figureheads of the movement” now claiming to speak for Michael Brown and the Ferguson protesters.  Among those having shown themselves as “friends of those with political power rather than fighters for real change” has been Reverend Al Sharpton who, according to Cooper, presided over the Brown funeral by
“stick(ing) to safe truths, convenient ones, about the problem of militarized policing, particularly in black communities.  Sharpton chose not to be a prophetic voice for the people of Ferguson but rather to do the work that the Obama administration sent him to do. That work entailed the placating of the people by ostensibly affirming their sense of injustice, while disaffirming their right to a kind of righteous rage in the face of such injustice.”
More troubling was Sharpton’s appearance at the funeral for Eric Garner the day before where, according to Byron York in the Washington Examiner,  pro forma criticisms of the NYPD functioned as an introduction to hectoring his audience with the “bootstraps” line associated with Bill Cosby and Sharpton’s increasingly close confident President Obama.
“We’ve got to be straight up in our community, too,” he said. “We have to be outraged at a 9-year-old girl killed in Chicago. We have got to be outraged by our disrespect for each other, our disregard for each other, our killing and shooting and running around gun-toting each other, so that they’re justified in trying to come at us because some of us act like the definition of blackness is how low you can go.”
Many in the audience were “enraged, among them Eddie S. Glaude Jr., professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton who “found the middle part of the eulogy profoundly disturbing.”
What remains to be seen is whether a new generation of black leaders will be able to step forward and not only give voice to this rage, but, to make strategic alliances with the 99% out in the streets two years before, and who were brutally suppressed creating a war zone in lower Manhattan which bore striking similarities to (the) that seen recently in Ferguson.
Should they do so, they will be sure to confront the full force of political and financial elites and their first lines of defense in the uniformed services.
When this potential was most actively present, nearly a half century ago, Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover made their names in infamy.
That role is sure to be adopted by Obama and Holder, who will assume the same role in blackface.
That black faces in high places now are fully capable of doing the work of elites up to and including smashing the faces of those who dare to challenge it has long since become obvious.  Ferguson, a relic of Jim Crown in its apartheid white governance of a black majority is a distraction from this reality.
The movement will need to look beyond this superficial difference and see the naked fist which revealed itself in Ferguson and Zuccotti Park as the same one.
If it learns to do so, then we can look forward to the American Spring and many desperately needed long hot summers to follow.
John Halle blogs at Outrages and Interludes

source: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/27/is-ferguson-the-american-spring/

Pawlowa's comment:

* The image of the Arab Spring is a false one, it has been misleading from the very beginning. The notion was an invention of those US-forces in the background, instigating the upheaval an manipulating it.

Join the call for a peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine


EDITOR'S CHOICE | 27.08.2014 | 21:16
 
Richard Branson, Jeff Skoll and other prominent Russian, Ukrainian and international business leaders called for a peaceful end to the conflict in Ukraine. Join them by signing the petition on Takepart.com.
Over 2000 people have lost their lives in the ongoing conflict, and many more are suffering. The economic impact of sanctions could create further misery and difficulties for people around the world.
As Richard Branson said in his blog, the dismantling of the Berlin War and end of the Cold War was “one of the greatest moments of our lives”. In a world that is more interconnected and transparent than ever before, let’s raise our voices and call for a peaceful end to this conflict and the right of all human beings to live in peace.

Für eine neue europäische Entspannungspolitik

Die Eskalation des Konfliktes mit Russland ist eine Sackgasse

von Karl Müller - Zeit-Fragen, 26. August 2014

Vor mehr als 50 Jahren, am 15. Juli 1963, hielt Egon Bahr, der damalige aussenpolitische Vordenker der deutschen SPD, in der Evangelischen Akademie im bayerischen Tutzing eine Rede, welche die Geschichte beeinflusste und in die Geschichte eingegangen ist. Die Rede hatte den Titel «Wandel durch Annäherung». Egon Bahr hielt diese Rede knapp zwei Jahre nach dem Bau der Mauer rund um West-Berlin seit dem 13. August 1961 und weniger als ein Jahr nach der Kuba-Krise im Oktober 1962.
Innerhalb der politischen Eliten der westlichen Staaten hatte ein Wandel im Denken begonnen. Der Kalte Krieg, der auf pure Konfrontation gesetzt hatte, war bedrohlich eskaliert. Keine Seite hatte einen «Sieg» erringen können. Statt dessen waren die «Kosten» des Kalten Krieges immer weiter gestiegen. Der Bau der Mauer in Berlin war Sinnbild einer Zementierung der deutschen Teilung, und mit der Kuba-Krise wäre die Welt um Haaresbreite in einer atomaren Katastrophe geendet.
Damals setzte sich Schritt für Schritt die Erkenntnis durch, dass Völker und Staaten in Europa und in der Welt auch dann friedlich zusammenleben und kooperieren müssen und können, wenn sie unterschiedlichen Machtblöcken angehören und unterschiedliche Vorstellungen von der Gestaltung des gesellschaftlichen, wirtschaftlichen und poli­tischen Lebens haben. Mehr noch: Man fasste damals die Hoffnung, dass ein «Wandel durch Annäherung» möglich sei, also Schritte aufeinander zu Krisen und Konflikte mindern sowie Spannungen und eine Eskalation verhindern könnten. Auf westlicher Seite bekam diese Politik den Namen «Entspannungspolitik». Schon seit Mitte der fünfziger Jahre hatten sowjetische Politiker von der Möglichkeit und Notwendigkeit einer «friedlichen Koexistenz» gesprochen.

Erneute Konfrontation mit Russland

Aber schon die achtziger Jahre des letzten Jahrhunderts und dann vor allem das Ende des Ostblocks im Jahr 1990 haben die Erfahrungen der zwei Jahrzehnte zuvor vergessen lassen. Wie berauscht von seinem «Sieg» sucht der Westen seitdem die Alleinherrschaft. Nun schon seit mehr als 10 Jahren, seit dem ersten Amtsantritt des russischen Präsidenten Vladimir Putin, suchen mächtige Kräfte im «Westen», angeführt aus den USA, wieder die offene Konfrontation mit Russland.
Im Jahrzehnt zuvor, nach dem Ende der Sowjetunion, hatten diese Kräfte versucht, das neue Russland so willfährig zu machen, dass es sich für ihre Interessen widerstandslos instrumentalisieren liess. Die Folgen für das Land waren verheerend. Es versank im politischen, wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Chaos und drohte zu kollabieren. Die Nato verschob ihre Grenzen – gegen die Absprachen mit der sowjetischen Führung vor der Auflösung des Warschauer Paktes – immer weiter in Richtung russischer Westgrenze. Unruhen und Separationsbestrebungen im Inneren Russlands wurden von aussen befördert. Immer mehr westlich beeinflusste Nichtregierungsorganisationen, aber auch andere Kräfte in verantwortlichen Positionen innerhalb der russischen Gesellschaft betätigten sich als eine Art fünfte Kolonne.
Das alles lässt sich heute für jeden nachvollziehbar nachweisen. Es waren die Jahre der «einzigen Weltmacht» USA. Die USA und die Nato hielten sich nicht mehr an die Regeln des Völkerrechts, sondern setzten allein auf ihre Macht und ihre Machtmittel. Der neue russische Präsident Putin versuchte gegenzusteuern. Das machte ihn im Westen zum «Staatsfeind Nr. 1».
Die heutige Konfrontation hat ihre Wurzeln nicht in der inneren Entwicklung in der Ukraine und auch nicht in der westlichen oder russischen Ukraine-Politik. Sie hat viel tiefere Ursachen. Seitdem Russland nicht mehr bereit ist, sich wie eine Kolonie des Westens erniedrigen und ausbeuten zu lassen, soll es in die Knie gezwungen werden.
Die westliche antirussische Propaganda hat nicht erst im vergangenen Herbst angefangen, sie wird seit Jahren betrieben. In den letzten Monaten und Wochen ist sie wegen der zentralen Bedeutung der Ukraine im Machtkampf gegen Russland eskaliert und hat auf westlicher Seite manichäische Züge angenommen. Sie wird Russland und der russischen Politik nicht gerecht. Und sie führt in eine Sackgasse – ähnlich wie der Kalte Krieg der Jahrzehnte nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg.

Nato setzt auf Konfrontationsstrategie

Typisch für eine Konfrontationspropaganda, aber völlig realitätsfern lesen, hören und sehen wir in unseren westlichen Leitmedien Tag für Tag, dass in Russland heute alles «böse» sei, vor allem die Spitze der Regierung. Seit ein paar Wochen hat der Westen Russland mit Sanktionen belegt. Nun will die Nato die Verträge mit Russland, die nach dem Kalten Krieg geschlossen wurden, aufkündigen, im Osten Europas aufrüsten und das «Feindbild Russland» in offiziellen Beschlüssen festschreiben. Dass Philip Breedlove, der oberste militärische Befehlshaber der Nato in Europa, der deutschen Zeitung Welt am Sonntag (17. August) erklärt hat, ein ähnliches Verhalten Russlands wie auf der Krim gegen ein Nato-Mitgliedsland würde als Kriegsakt gegen die Nato gewertet, hat keinerlei realistischen Hintergrund, sondern ist reine Stimmungsmache und Kriegspropaganda.
Für seine Aussage, Russland bedrohe die baltischen Staaten, hat Breedlove keinen einzigen Beleg vorgelegt. Statt dessen spricht der US-General dunkle Drohungen aus: «Ich möchte an eines klar erinnern: Wenn die Nato ausländische Kräfte in ihr Hoheitsgebiet einsickern sieht, und wenn wir dieses Vorgehen einer Aggressornation nachweisen können – dann ist das Artikel fünf. Dann tritt der Bündnisfall ein. Das bedeutet eine militärische Antwort auf die Aktionen dieses Aggressors.» Wozu haben der Generalsekretär der Nato Anders Fogh Rasmussen und der oben genannte Befehlshaber der Nato-Truppen in Europa in einem gemeinsamen Artikel am selben Tag im «The Wall Street Journal» ähnlich martialisch über eine vermeintliche russische Gefahr für die Nato-Staaten im Osten Europas geschrieben?

Politik gegen die Natur des Menschen

Manche behaupten, die Kriegspropaganda und die Pläne der Nato seien notwendige Verteidigungsanstrengungen gegen ein aggressives Russland. Das hält einer Überprüfung nicht stand. Die tatsächliche russische Politik bietet hierfür keine Grundlage.
Andere wiederum sagen, diese westliche Politik entspreche US-amerikanischen «Interessen». Manch einer fügt hinzu, sie entspreche aber auf keinem Fall europäischen «Interessen» … und schon gar nicht deutschen «Interessen». Auch darüber kann man nachdenken.
Aber kann es überhaupt ein «Interesse» an einer solchen Konfrontation und Eskalation geben? Der Kalte Krieg hat doch gezeigt, dass dieser Weg letztlich keinem «Interesse» dient. Die Verantwortlichen drehen an einem hochgefährlichen Rad, an dessen Ende eine Menschheitskatastrophe stehen kann, von der alle Menschen betroffen sein werden. Eine solche Politik ist ein Verbrechen, auch gegen die menschliche Natur. Die Geschichtsbücher sind voll von vermeintlich «rationaler» «Interessens»-Politik, die im Wahnsinn mündete.

Bewährte Instrumente der Friedenspolitik nutzen

Die Politik in den siebziger Jahren des vergangenen Jahrhunderts hat Instrumente geschaffen, um auf der Grundlage der gegenseitigen Achtung den Weg der Konfrontation zu verlassen und zu Verhandlungslösungen zu kommen. Die am heutigen Konflikt beteiligten Staaten sind allesamt Mitglied der OSZE. Dort böte sich die Möglichkeit einer gleichberechtigten Debatte und Entscheidungsfindung. Mit der «Charta von Paris» vom November 1990 wurde offiziell das Ende des ersten Kalten Krieges verkündet und eine ideelle Grundlage geschaffen, auf der man heute aufbauen könnte. Man muss das Rad nicht neu erfinden, um die heutigen Probleme zu lösen – man muss es nur wollen.
Dieser Wille wird wachsen, wenn die Erkenntnis wächst, dass es auch im zweiten Kalten Krieg keinen «Sieger» geben kann, sondern nur eine Verhandlungslösung. Noch hoffen die Kräfte, die im Westen den neuen Kalten Krieg führen, auf einen Sieg. Sie setzen nicht nur auf das Schlachtfeld der Militärs, sondern auch auf einen Umsturz in Russ­land selbst. Die «farbenen Revolutionen» und der Maidan in der Ukraine sind die Muster.
Aber die Welt ist klüger geworden. Die Strategie des Umsturzes wird durchschaut. Gelingt es in Russland, den Umsturz zu verhindern, dann wird der Wille wachsen, den neuen Kalten Krieg zu beenden.    •
2014  © Zeit-Fragen. Alle Rechte reserviert.

Everything You Know About Hamas is Wrong

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By Tim Holmes
August 21, 2014 "ICH" -- Alright, not everything. And no, not you, smart-arse. Still, it’s been alarming to be reminded over the past month just how delusory much western public conversation on Hamas is. A common perception is that Hamas are in essence recalcitrant fundamentalist extremists, hell-bent on destroying Israel by any means possible. Virulently anti-semitic, misogynist and genocidal, they use whatever weapons they acquire to murder Israeli civilians and perhaps even attack Western targets internationally, without compunction or restraint. There is little awareness in this discourse that Hamas differ in any significant way from the Jihadists of ISIS or Al-Qaeda.Probably the most valuable basic text in dispelling these delusions is Khaled Hroub’s Hamas: A Beginner’s Guide, which takes on most of the major confusions and misconceptions surrounding the group’s seldom-explained ideology and modus operandi. Hroub is a senior research fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Centre of Islamic Studies as well as Director of its Arab Media Project, and his work on Hamas is held in very high regard: Foreign Affairs deems it “masterful”; Columbia’s Joseph Massad calls it “the best-researched and most objective” work on the topic, while Harvard’s Sara Roy, a leading expert on the Israel-Palestine conflict, calls it “excellent” and “required reading”.
Firstly, are Hamas anti-Semitic? Hroub’s careful answer is that, though there have been manifold confusions in Hamas’s writings and rhetoric between Jews, Zionists and Israelis, Jewishness is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for Hamas’s opposition. The group draw a sharp distinction, for instance, between “Zionist and non-Zionist” Jews:
“The non-Zionist Jew is one who belongs to the Jewish culture, whether as a believer in the Jewish faith or simply by accident of birth, but … [who] takes no part in aggressive actions against our land and our nation … Hamas will not adopt a hostile position in practice against anyone because of his ideas or his creed but will adopt such a position if those ideas and creed are translated into hostile or damaging actions against our people.”
Rather, it is the occupation and dispossession of the Palestinians that evokes Hamas’s resistance. As one of its leaders puts it:
“being Jewish, Zionist or Israeli is irrelevant, what is relevant for me is the notion of occupation and aggression. Even if this occupation was imposed by an Arab or Islamic state and the soldiers were Arabs or Muslims I would resist and fight back.
Are Hamas committed to the destruction of Israel? In fact, Hroub writes, this phrase is “never used or adopted by Hamas, even in its most radical statements.” Rather, Hamas seeks “the liberation of Palestine.” While this initially meant historic Palestine in its entirety, Hamas are a generally pragmatic organisation rooted in, and responsive to, the needs and wishes of Palestinian society, and in practice back a two-state solution along the lines of the international consensus: Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied in 1967, and a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. They frame this in terms of a long-term hudna or “truce” – a term rooted in Islamic tradition that Hamas draw on to justify suspensions of its jihad, or struggle. The group have floated the idea of a Palestinian referendum as a path to a final settlement, allowing the movement to reconcile its initial, hard-line position with its present, pragmatic stance. Hamas state that they would accept whatever outcome the Palestinians themselves chose.
Most commonly invoked to incite alarm about Hamas’s supposed anti-Semitism is its (to cite Roy) “undeniably racist and anti-Jewish” Charter. Yet this document is a singularly unhelpful guide to the modern movement. As Hroub points out:
“The Charter was written in early 1988 by one individual and was made public without appropriate general Hamas consultation, revision or consensus … The author of the Charter was one of the “old guard” of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip, completely cut off from the outside world”.
The document is therefore regarded as an embarrassment, rarely referenced or cited, and starkly divergent from Hamas’s current thinking. As the organisation’s chief, Khaled Meshal, told the New York Times in 2009:
“The most important thing is what Hamas is doing and the policies it is adopting today. . . . Hamas has accepted the national reconciliation document. It has accepted a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders including East Jerusalem, dismantling settlements, and the right of return based on a long-term truce. Hamas has represented a clear political program through a unity government. This is Hamas’s program regardless of the historic documents. Hamas has offered a vision. Therefore, it’s not logical for the international community to get stuck on sentences written 20 years ago.”
As one official US government agency concluded the same year:
“Hamas has, in practice, moved well beyond its charter. Indeed, Hamas has been carefully and consciously adjusting its political program for years and has sent repeated signals that it may be ready to begin a process of coexisting with Israel.”
Is Hamas an utterly intransigent, implacably violent organisation pursuing genocidal aims? In fact, its leaders have repeatedly proposed a long-term truce with Israel of 10, 20 or 30 years’ duration (with the possibility of continual renewal thereafter), and it has shown itself willing to accept and carefully observe ceasefires. In the words of Avi Shlaim, probably the best-respected historian of the Israeli-Arab conflict:
“The historical record shows that despite its terrible Charter, Hamas is led by pragmatic political leaders who have settled for a two-state solution along the 1967 lines, and who have made every effort to end the conflict by diplomatic means.
Such efforts, Shlaim notes, include offers to negotiate a long-term truce following its election in 2006, a reprisal of that offer after it formed a national unity government in 2007 – which met with a US-Israeli-Fatah coup attempt – and in the national unity government of 2014, which saw Hamas essentially cede power (gaining no ministerial positions) while agreeing to recognise Israel, renounce violence and respect past agreements. Over the last month, the media have hyped Hamas’ rejection of a ceasefire deal stitched up between its enemies Egypt and Israel without any Hamas involvement – which, since it would see Hamas lose ground from the previous ceasefire agreement Israel was continually violating, was impossiblefor Hamas to accept. Nonetheless, Hamas quickly responded with its own, long-term (10-year) ceasefire offer – which Israel rebuffed.
2009’s Operation Cast Lead, Shlaim notes, a bloody massacre in which Israel killed over 1,000 Palestinians – most of them civilians – was likewise the result of Israeli provocation and belligerence in the face of Hamas restraint:
“In June 2008, Egypt had brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement. Contrary to Israeli propaganda, this was a success: the average number of rockets fired monthly from Gaza dropped from 179 to three. Yet on 4 November Israel violated the ceasefire by launching a raid into Gaza, killing six Hamas fighters. When Hamas ­retaliated, Israel seized the renewed rocket attacks as the excuse for launching its insane offensive. If all Israel wanted was to protect its citizens from Qassam rockets, it only needed to observe the ceasefire.
Further back, Hamas sharply opposed the Oslo peace process of the 1990s (though later participated in the elections it established), but in the context of sharp divisions of opinion and serious reservations across Palestinian society. Many of its objections, echoing those of the left, have been vindicated. “One of the meanings of Oslo,” notes Israeli ex-minister Shlomo Ben-Ami,
“was that the PLO was … Israel’s collaborator in the task of stifling the intifada and cutting short what was clearly an authentically democratic struggle for Palestinian independence.”
Moreover:
“As a matter of fact, neither Rabin nor, especially, Peres [1992-96 Labor Prime Ministers] wanted the autonomy to usher in a Palestinian state. As late as 1997 – that is, four years into the Oslo process when, as the chairman of the Labour Party’s Foreign Affairs Committee, I proposed for the first time that the party endorse the idea of a Palestinian state – it was Shimon Peres who most vehemently opposed the idea. … A Palestinian state was clearly not within Rabin’s priorities either.”
Hamas’ tactic of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians – morally abhorrent and a crime against humanity – did its international reputation no favours, doubtless added credibility to the allegation of genocidal intent, and may have encouraged more extreme groups to adopt the tactic. Nevertheless, this chequered history does not alter Hamas’s real strategic aims. Its leaders declare that “resistance is not an end in itself”; as the movement’s spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yasin put it in September 2003:
“If we perceive that the atmosphere favours such a decision, we stop. And when we perceive that the atmosphere has changed, we carry on.”
Far from an end in themselves, suicide bombings were a tactic. Hamas first launched them in 1994, following far-right settler Baruch Goldstein’s vicious massacre of 29 Palestinian worshippers in Hebron’s Abrahimic mosque – but, Hroub notes, quickly realised they “provided the movement with an aura of strength and popularity” amongst Palestinians. Israel hinted that it was willing to negotiate an end to these attacks, but Hamas’s position – “stop killing Palestinian civilians and we will stop killing Israeli civilians” – proved a non-starter for the Israeli government. (During the second intifada, the number of Palestinianchildren killed was greater than the number of Israeli civilians killed.) Between 2000 and 2005, “tacit agreements” to halt attacks routinely expired as “Israel would waste no opportunity to assassinate one Hamas leader after another”. Indeed evidence suggests Israel overwhelmingly shoots first during a lull.
Hamas differs starkly from Al-Qaeda-style jihadists, then, in its aims, means, targets and fundamental nature. Hamas began by seeking the liberation of historic Palestine, ultimately narrowing that aim to ending the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Al-Qaeda’s focus, by contrast, is pan-Islamic: it seeks to kick the West out of Arab and Muslim countries, tear down corrupt puppet governments and instate hard-line Taliban-style regimes across the Muslim world. Its battleground is global: Al-Qaeda targets the US, the western “Crusader states” that attack Muslim countries, Muslim “apostates” (a category that includes Hamas) and westerners anywhere, ruling out democratic and peaceful means. Far from pursuing any such “global jihad”, Hamas strictly limits its operations to historic Palestine, and has never targeted Westerners. In 2006, for instance, Cechen rebels urged Hamas to break off relations with Moscow over its horrific crimes in Chechnya; Hamas declined, concluding that relations with Moscow were of more value to the Palestinian struggle. It is also a democratic organisation, in some ways to a fault, Hroub suggests: electing senior figures one by one can give it a chaotic leadership structure. Overall, Hamas resemble a national liberation movement far more than a transnational jihadist network.
Early rhetoric about creating an Islamic state is no longer taken seriously – if it ever was – and Hamas now expresses a pluralist outlook, deriving its terminology from international law and mainstream political theory. Again, this reflects its roots in Palestinian society and need to maintain its base of support. Hamas enjoys some electoral support among Christians, backed two independent Christian candidates in the 2006 elections, and appointed a Christian to its ministerial team. Nevertheless, Hroub writes, some research suggests its rule has put pressure on Christian groups, increasing rates of emigration, and moves to impose some conservative Islamic moral codes on Palestinian society have elicited anger and alarmed secularists. In the past, Hroub notes, these have included “soft” forms of influence – through provision of social services, for instance – as well as occasionally “harder”, more forceful forms from some members, though its leadership generally kept them in check. (Human rights groups have also condemned its arrests of journalists and serious abuses against alleged “collaborators”.) Nevertheless, Roy notes Hamas’s “progressive de-emphasis on religion” in power, alongside “the emerging Islamization of Palestinian society and politics”.
Reports of Hamas employing “human shields” and diverting humanitarian resources into fanatical militarism depict a fundamentally despotic organisation – malign toward and parasitic on ordinary Palestinians. This idea has roots in both Orientalist portrayals of Arab leaders and more recent Israeli government propaganda, but largely inverts reality. In fact, Hamas derives popularity not only from concerted resistance to occupation but also the widespread social assistance that forms the bulk of its work, helping sustain Palestinians through increasingly dire poverty. As Roy puts it:
“During the Oslo period especially, the strength of Hamas increasingly lay in the work of Islamic social institutions whose services, directly and indirectly, reached tens if not hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, helping them to survive. They provided services that the Palestinian Authority was unable to provide adequately, if at all. This base supported Islamic institutions largely because they met basic needs for economic sustenance and community well-being with a focus on health and education, community support, and service delivery. Islamic institutions were increasingly viewed as community actors in a context where few such actors existed. … Islamic institutions did not emphasize political violence or substate terrorism but rather community well-being and civic restoration, a role that was (and remains) vital in a context of steady deterioration.”
In power, Hamas’s smashed and vilified tunnels actually provided a lifeline for Gaza’s crippled economy. Hamas’s conspicuous material modesty has also increased its popularity in contrast to the corrupt Fatah leadership. Equally, journalists and human rights monitors find no evidence that Hamas uses “human shields”, but uncover extensive evidence of the practice by Israel – which also, of course, sites military facilities near major populated areas, subsidises the housing of civilians in a war zone, and deliberatelyrisks the lives of captured IDF soldiers.
As Roy concludes:
“While there can be no doubt that since its inception in 1987, Hamas has engaged in violence, armed struggle, and terrorism as the primary force behind the horrific suicide bombings inside Israel, it is also a broadbased movement that has evolved into an increasingly complex, varied, and sophisticated organization engaged in a variety of societal activities vital to Palestinian life.”
To westerners, this may come a surprise. But then, since when has any of us received sane, reasonable commentary from the nightly Two Minutes Hate?
Tim blogs at http://timholmesblog.wordpress.com

Lies, Propaganda and “Political Brainwashing”. Remembering and Forgetting

sheep
What is the explanation for the brainwashing of so many Americans when it involves the nefarious, unspeakable deeds of their government? Why are so many so easily duped time and again? Why is there such a vast ignorance of the truth behind national and international affairs?
I would suggest that the answer lies not just with the specific issues themselves and the lies and propaganda used to befuddle the American people, but with the cultural and social background that frames Americans’ thinking. The latter serves to cut to the root people’s belief in their own power to think freely and clearly about the former. Invade people’s minds over many years with an ongoing series of interconnected memes, occupy their minds with alleged facts that induce a frenzied depression, and then fooling them on specific issues — e.g. Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, etc. – becomes much easier.
I am a sociology professor, and my students always laugh when during a discussion of memory, social and personal, I ask them about their forgetties (the actual word is forgetteries, but the shorter rhyme gets more laughs). They think I’m joking. Maybe you do, too. I’m not.
But when I suggest that if they “possess” the faculty to remember, then they must “possess” the faculty to forget, they are astonished. You can’t forget, they reply, you just don’t remember; you can’t retrieve the memories that are stored in your brain. In other words, there are no forgottens, just temporarily unavailable memories. From there we are onto a discussion of retrieving (I think of dogs), processing (their word for thinking and mine for making American cheese), and all the computer lingo that has been the surround of their lives. Like fish in water, the mechanistic computer memes have been their environment since birth. They are shocked at the suggestion that there might be more outside the cultural water, and that they could go there.
And they have a lot of company.
This may sound flippant, but it’s crucial for understanding why so many Americans can’t comprehend and pay attention to the ways their minds are scrambled and confused about life and death issues, how their country has fallen victim to the military-industrial-intelligence apparatus that operates deep in the shadows, and oftentimes right in the open.
If we examine the social and cultural context of the last twenty-five years, we can see a number of issues that have dominated Americans’ “thinking.” These issues have been promulgated and repeated ad infinitum by the corporate media, professional classes, and schools at all levels. We have been swimming in these issues for years. I suggest the following five are key: the inability to concentrate or pay attention (ADD/ADHD), memory/forgetting (dementia, Alzheimer’s, technological memory devices), people’s lack of time and constant busyness (a recent email I received from a publisher read: “crazy-busy? use our power-point decks”), drugs legal or illegal as problems or solutions (over 4 billion prescriptions written in the U.S.A. yearly), and technology as our savior.
Together with shopping and the weather, these five topics have been the stuff of endless conversations and media chatter over the years.
When people are questioned about major issues of war and peace; political assassinations, such as those of JFK, MLK, or RFK; the alleged war on terror; the downing of Malaysian airlines; the overthrow of elected governments in the Ukraine or Egypt; the events of 9/11; government spying; economic robbery by the elites — the list is long, it’s common for people to echo the government/corporate media, or, if pressed, to say, I don’t know, I can’t remember, no one knows for sure, it’s impossible to know, we’ll never know, etc.. The confused responses are replete with an unacknowledged despair at ever arriving at clear and certain conclusions, not to say being able to do anything about them. On many issues they bounce between the twin absurdities of Democratic and Republican talking points, thinking they are being perceptive.
Why?
If we set aside the substantive issues, and examine the aforementioned cultural memes, the answers are not hard to find. Here most people speak as if they are certain. “Of course there isn’t a forgettery.” “Depression is caused by a chemical imbalance.” “Memories are all stored in the brain.” “I really am so busy all the time.” “Facts are just opinions.” Americans have internalized the ethos presented to them by the elites. At the core of this is the propaganda of scientific materialism and biological determinism that we are not free but are victims of our genes, neurotransmitters, brain/computers and chemicals, technology, etc. Having lost our minds and fixated on our brains, we have been taught to be determined to be determined, not free. And whether consciously or unconsciously, most have obliged. The linkages between memory, attention, distraction, drugs, technology all point to the brain and the obsessive cultural discussion of brain matters.
We have been told interminably that our lives revolve around our brains (our bodies) and that the answers to our problems lie with more brain research, drugs, genetic testing, etc. It is not coincidental that the U. S. government declared the 1990s the decade of brain research, followed up with 2000-2010 as the decade of the behavior project, and our present decade being devoted to mapping the brain and artificial intelligence, organized by the Office of Science and Technology Project and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. How convenient! George H. W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama — what a difference! But this is science and the welfare of the world.
For years we have been fed philosophical presuppositions smuggled in as fact. It’s an old trick, ever young. Tell people over and over and over again that life is in essence a mindless material/biological trap and over time they will believe it. Of course there are unspoken exceptions — those who are the masters of this con-game, the few, the elite, those who make and reinforce the case. And even some of them are too ignorant to comprehend their questionable presuppositions. They hoist themselves by their own petards while cashing in at the bank.
My students can’t forget because they don’t believe in it. But they can’t remember either. They don’t know why. So, like the older generation, they fall into the careless habit of inaccuracy, to turn Oscar Wilde on his head. They have downloaded their memories, uploaded their trifles, and been tranquilized by trivia.
As the great American sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote over fifty years ago, “Nowadays people often feel that their private lives are a series of traps.” That is truer today than then. A sense of entrapment and determinism pervades our culture. And it extends to public issues as well. We are told either to accept official explanations for public events or be dismissed as crazies.
I would suggest that for people to break through to a true understanding of the important public events of our time, they must also come to understand the false memes of their culture, the way they have been mindwashed to believe that at the most rudimentary level they are not free.
Maybe the first best step toward free thought and out of the propaganda trap would to accept that you “possess” a forgettery . Listen to the American philosopher Paul Simon sing, “When I think back to all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” Use your forgettery and forget the crap. Make haste slowly to question everything. Remember that the corporate media works hand in glove with the ruling elites on two levels of propaganda — cultural and political, and it is necessary to understand how they are intertwined. Freedom is indivisible.
That’s worth remembering.

National March on Ferguson

National March on Ferguson

by DON FITZ
You are invited to join us at the National March on Ferguson, on Saturday, August 30, 2014.  The Justice for Michael Brown Leadership Coalition will begin the march at 10 am at “Ground Zero,” the corner of W. Florissant Ave. and Canfield Dr. (63135).  This site of ongoing activity is a block from where policeman Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown by pumping six bullets into him as he held his hands up saying “Don’t shoot!”
Ever since thousands of people gathered at the site of the murder, the power elite and corporate press in St. Louis have tried every tactic they can think of to get people to go home and be quiet.  They brought in armored vehicles and armies of cops loaded with weapons pointed at demonstrators.  This infuriated local residents and the order went out to get rid of armored vehicles and scale down the number of police.
During the most intense looting and burning, protestors tried to stop anyone from breaking into stores.  Dozens of observers reported police standing by and watching.  Had they received orders not to intervene in order to justify increased repression?
Governor Jay Nixon took control away from local authorities and put black Highway Patrolman Ron Johnson in charge.  He imposed a curfew.  Then he lifted the curfew.  The National Guard was brought in.  Then the Guard’s role was reduced to only protecting police headquarters.
It looked like a tremendous tug-of-war between elites who wanted to squelch the anger of black youth but disagreed on how best to do it.  Simple-minded elites could only imagine brute force.  But their more sophisticated kinsmen imagined various strategies of creating the appearance of less police violence today in order to prepare for more repression tomorrow.  Central to their strategy has been demonizing protestors.
In recent days, St. Louis press has been parroting the police claim that the biggest problem is “outside agitators.”  “Outside agitators” is the identical phrase used by racists during protests of the 1950s and 60s that led to Civil Rights legislation.  Now, as 60 years ago, white power elites suggest that people would be happy if others would not “stir them up.”
There are others with memories of those historic days of civil rights demonstrations and cops feeling free to attack with clubs and dogs.  Less than four days after the murder, “The South Carolina-based New Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan” said that its Missouri chapter was raising money for the cop who killed Michael Brown, even though the Ferguson Police Chief was still refusing to release his name.
On August 13, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that the Klan announced that it was “setting up a reward/fund for the police officer who shot this thug… He is a hero!”  The Klan justified its plans: “We know that Michael Brown was nothing more than a punk.”
Soon after Darren Wilson was identified as the cop who killed Brown, those who supported Wilson appeared on the streets of St. Louis (in the far south, almost completely white neighborhood around Chippewa and Hampton).  After they had been there for several days, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (August 24, 2014, p. A5) ran a full page ad by the National Association of Police Organizations expressing “a deep and profound concern for Police Officer Darrel Wilson.”  Several TV stations reported that, by that day, the pro-Wilson group had raised over $300,000 for him.
The way corporate media has reported the pro-Brown and pro-Wilson demonstrations has been as different as black and white.  Day after day, St. Louis media has blared out how many of those arrested for supporting Michael Brown are from Chicago, New York or Texas, as if coming to St. Louis is a heinous crime.  TV stations feature Police Chiefs bellowing that this proves that action in Ferguson is due to “outside agitators,”
Yet, as local media cover the pro-Wilson pickets, not one reporter asks the question of how many are from out of town.  No reports ask where their money is coming from.  There is not a single story addressing whether there is a connection between the KKK and those raising money for the cop who killed an unarmed black man.
Everyone who has been attacked or mistreated by police anywhere shoult meet us in St. Louis.  We are all part of the same struggle to end police brutality.  This includes victims of racial profiling (whether black, brown, yellow or red), victims of police sexual harassment, anti-war protestors, environmental activists, civil rights demonstrators and Occupiers.
Darren Wilson is currently on paid leave from the Ferguson Police Department.  The August 30 march will demand that he be immediately fired.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon should immediately remove St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch.  McCulloch has a track record of extreme bias against prosecuting police who shoot black victims.  He drags out judicial processes so that nothing is done.  McCulloch’s current plan to turn the case over to a grand jury instead of charging Wilson with murder is a common tactic to ensure that cops who kill blacks walk free.
When police are encouraged to harass blacks on a daily basis, the stage is set for them to believe that they can get away with murder.  Therefore, the Coalition is asking US Attorney General Eric Holder and Missouri State Attorney General Chris Koster to investigate practices of municipalities throughout Missouri who have a history of racial profiling.  There must be penalties for municipalities that show racist patterns of arrest.
Currently, many Missouri municipalities generate money by profiling blacks for traffic stops and fines.  Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich must audit funds of municipalities to find out which have a history of racial profiling.
The death of Michael Brown is largely due to the institutional racism of the City of Ferguson.  Ferguson Mayor James Knowles and Police Chief Thomas Jackson must immediately resign from their positions, and, if they refuse, the people of Ferguson should recall the Mayor.
The Justice for Michael Brown Leadership Coalition is growing.  As of now, it includes the Universal African Peoples Organization, Tauheed Youth Group, Nation of Islam, Organization for Black Struggle, Black Lawyers for Justice, St. Louis Urban League, Better Family Life, St. Louis City NAACP, St. Louis County NAACP, MOKAN, Missouri Green Party, New Black Panther Party, St. Louis Stop the Killing Initiative, Attorney Jerryl Christmas, Rev. Spencer Lamar Booker, Ferguson Committeewoman Patricia Payne, Greendale Alderman Robert Ringo, and Missouri State Senators Jamilah Nasheed and Maria Nicole Chappelle-Nadal.
This is very short notice for the August 30 demonstration — but tactics of government and police repression are changing daily and it is vital to build a broad movement of opposition to ongoing killings by police.  While we welcome everyone, those coming to Ferguson need to be “self-sufficient,” which means having a place to stay in the St. Louis area.  Organizers are already stretched thin and cannot provide housing.
Don Fitz is the Missouri Green Party representative on the Justice for Michael Brown Leadership Coalition.  He can be reached atfitzdon@aol.com AUGUST 27, 2014