RESPECT MY AUTHORITAH

Respect My Authoritah: Jon Stewart Skewers Obama’s Hypocrisy

BP Is a Corporate Criminal by Jim Hightower

Gosh, how quickly things turn. One day, you’re a strutting peacock — the next day, you’re just another gasping, oil-covered bird.

From the time it was known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and set out to grab and control the rich petroleum reserves owned by what is now Iran, BP has been a recidivist global criminal. In the past three decades, it grew huge by swallowing such competitors as Standard Oil of Ohio, Amoco and Arco. Along the way, it has been implicated in bribery, overthrowing governments, plunder and money laundering, plus having established one of the worst safety and environmental records in an industry that is notoriously reckless on both counts.

And now, its rap sheet grows almost daily. In fact, the Center for Public Integrity has revealed that the oil giant’s current catastrophic mess should come as no surprise, for it has a long and sorry record of causing calamities. In the last three years, the center says, an astonishing “97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the refining industry by government safety inspectors” came at BP facilities. These included 760 violations rated as “egregious” and “willful.” In contrast, the oil company with the second-worst record had only eight such citations.

“It wasn’t our accident,” CEO Tony Hayward declared, as oil was spreading. They own the well and their decisions to cut corners led directly to the catastrophe.

Eleven oil workers are dead, thousands of Gulf Coast people have had their livelihoods devastated and unfathomable damage is being done to the gulf ecology. Imagine how the authorities would be treating the offender if BP were a person. It would’ve been put behind bars long ago — if not on death row.  READ MORE: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/16-2.

MY TWO-BITS

The BP Oil disaster in the Gulf is a final wake up call, if it isn’t the exponential cause of total global environmental disaster. 

There is a scientific postulate that asserts that the Earth will renew itself – having suffered the depredations of miners, loggers, or nuclear waste makers – given enough time (eons).  The Earth will right itself, and all the damage done by humankind will be undone.  This postulate is known as the Gaea Effect, after the Earth Goddess Gaea, the ‘deep-breasted,’ whose ‘soil nourishes all that exists and by whose benevolence men are blessed with fair children and all the pleasant fruits of the earth.’  Her majesty was once acknowledged ‘not only by men but by the gods themselves.’ Whenever conservation is mentioned in America, however, many men look as if the devil had propositioned them.  Women pointedly mention a husband, father, boyfriend, brother, or hanger-on of male importance, who is gainfully employed as: a well-digger in the oil fields; a logger on a pristine mountain top; a strip miner in the fecund valleys; or, in charge of the nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island.

Freemarket Man thinks of himself as the lord of creation, husband of the universe.  How utterly absurd that is.  He believes he can rape his bride at will, without conscience, and survive to an unburdened old age.  Like any abused wife, the good, old natural continuum will quietly stab Man in the back some dark night.  Or, set his bed on fire! The variable is the rate of decay caused by our assault on the biosphere.  As our environment disintegrates, we open our amniotic fluid to the outside vacuum – the eternal void of space.  We chip the shell from our fragile egg and leave the poorly formed embryo to fry in the empty silence.  Word on the street is that the world is ending.  We’ve run our course as a species and the forest-destroying masses, the poor and the starving billions, are at last about to bring down Cargill Grain and the International Oil Cartel, not just BP.

The time for bold, visionary leadership for a clean energy future is now. We must develop a plan to move our nation beyond oil in the next 20 years, or perish.

Saturday is Worldwide BP Protest Day, with actions planned in over 50 cities on five continents. Details on Facebook here.  Discuss…

Related article: CORPORATIONS + PARALLEL UNIVERSES

A BIG LOAD OF CRAP

There is so much pure crap going on these days that it is hard to pick a simple few to concentrate on.  Here’s a small sample from recent alarms:

• Human Trafficking: Not Someone Else’s Problem  Greg Kaufmann
• Broken Promises, Broken Laws, Broken Lives Amy Goodman
• Memories and Misery in CNN Land While Homeowers Seek Mortgage Justice and Foreclosures Mount Danny Schechter
• Rape and Spillage Robert Scheer
• Ethnic Cleansing in Kyrgyzstan Ted Rall
• Obama’s Conservative Call to War Against Oil Ira Chernus
• Humiliation and Shame: Part of Being Insured in America Donna Smith
• The Lesson of BP: Too Much Greed? Too Little Guts? Frances Moore Lappé

8.2 MILLION JOBLESS AT RISK  TAXING BILLIIONAIRES July 21, 2008 by CommonDreams.org

Of course, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010  will provide the GOP with an opportunity to lash out at deficit-creating Democratic “tax and spend” policies-even with taxes specifically targeted at billionaires,

Moreover, Republican indifference to the plight of the jobless running out of benefits-exemplified by Sen. Jim Bunning’s (R-Ky.) infamous “I don’t give a sh*t” response-is already evident. With the mid-term elections less than five months away, more cynical Republicans may calculate that a denial of benefits will cause some of the unemployed to lose faith in Democrats, vote Republican-or refrain from voting altogether.

But clearly, the need for more job-creation efforts and help for the jobless is growing more acute by the day. Jobless workers are losing benefits, and mega-banks are simply drawing interest from the Federal Reserve rather than lending out money to fuel the recovery. May actually set a record for home foreclosures. The American economy has increasingly been characterized by minimal job growth, at best.

In this dire context, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka  thundered to Congress, “If you’re not for this bill, you’re not for jobs. Period. And please, no more excuses about budget deficits unless you’re willing to make Wall Street pay its fair share to bring it down.”  READ MORE: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/11-3

STATE-OF-THE-ART

The monopoly corporations have subverted American democracy.  The Obama administration is playing kissy-kissy with them.  Congress is bending over and presenting to them.  The Supreme Court is a terrible farce, no longer dealing in justice, but privilege and power.  BP’s sick as hell managers and stockholders, Dick Cheney and the whole ugly Republican and religious fundamentalist elitist mess is a disaster for the country.  Nothing short of full-fledged major systemic reform will root out these cancers on the body politic.  Let’s start by impeaching the Supreme Court Five, bringing BP to criminal justice, and putting Dick Cheney and his Halliburton gangsters into jail where they really belong.

DON’T FORGET

Amend U.S. Constitution to declare that corporations are not persons and do not have the rights of human beings. Congresswoman Donna Edwards and constitutional law professor Jamie Raskin speak out against the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and call for a mass movement of people to support a constitutional amendment.

We Move to Amend.

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:

• Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.  
• Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our votes and participation count.
• Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate “preemption” actions by global, national, and state governments.  

Signed by 82,906 and counting . . . CONTACT: http://www.movetoamend.org/

War Criminal Waves to Suckers.

Late Breaking News:  Center in Court to Stop Attack on Offshore-drilling Ban

NOTHING HOLY in HOLY LAND

Last Sun

Living By the Sword

Helen Thomas

Amidst all the outrage about veteran journalist Helen Thomas intemperately saying what so many on the left, including many Jews, feel but more politely say – “The Jews should get the hell out of Palestine” – some are defending her for what she likely meant, adding meaningful context to the trap of sound bites. Three activist Jews speak out here, and Al Jazeera offers thoughtful analysis here on the sea change in public opinion that Thomas represents.

–Abby Zimet

Discuss…http://www.commondreams.org/further/2010/06/09-1

NOTHING IS HOLY IN THE “HOLY” LAND:

Any claim to “holiness” in ownership of the “Holy” Land, by any constituent of any side, is preposterous.  People of every persuasion have been killing each other over this crap hunk of real estate for thousands of years, to no apparent resolution, pretty much to malign purpose, and to the point of certifiable mental disease.

Their feuds are mindlessly generational, and they routinely dishonor their prophets and messiahs.  Peace is an illusion, reason is a poor orphan; “right” is confused with “rite;” and “hope” is just a word.

The people of the “Holy” Land are primarily useful to International Capitalists as trade route and pipeline handlers – since ancient times.  Their demographic division is a matter of greed supported by superstition.  Their migratory waves have pushed each other back and forth from Baghdad to Cairo for six thousand years.  Don’t let ‘em kid you, the protagonists have been a blood thirsty bunch for a mighty long time – no foolin’.  The “Holy” Land has always been incredibly harsh and savage; and its peoples have never been any different.  This is a piece of earth that people kill and die over repeatedly.

In practice, “god” – whatever Her, His, or Its name is – is a “get out of jail free” card for murder, and a justification for crimes against humanity and the planet.  Most cultures condone and/or pardon violence done to the “Alien Other.”  Fathers teach sons, who teach sons, who teach sons how to hate.  In that sense, the peoples of the “Holy” Land are not unique – just amazingly obsessive about that little crap hunk of real estate.

Who’d be so damned stupid as to stick his big old idiot foot into that “holy muck?”  Perhaps, a megalomaniac, a psychopath,  sectarian nut, or an oilman.  In the “holy” land, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed sang about morality, peace and love in mind-numbing chorus.  In the Sixties, the Beatles sang, “Give peace a chance.”  In the Seventies, John Lennon added, “All you need is love.”  Of course, nobody listened to any of those do-gooders, and we now sing, “Waist deep in the Big Muddy, and the Big Fool says to Push On!”

It’s very hard to believe that any respectable or self-respecting god might have any interest and/or want to claim any responsibility for the disastrous generational holocaust in the so-called “Holy” Land.  Self-deception is, indeed, the fundamental core value of the human race.  It enables us to do so many terrible ungodly things that a conscience and compassion might prevent.

“The Israel of the Bible was established altogether by the sword,” Thomas Paine American founding father wrote, “and that in the worst use of it – not to terrify, but to extirpate.  The Jews made no converts; they butchered all.”  What are they doing differently today?

Related article:  MY STORY BEGINS  Religion is Bunk.

What George W. Bush and Ramses the Great Have in Common.

G.W. Bush’s recent efforts to rewrite his history remind me of Ramses the Great (pharaoh of the biblical exodus, if you believe).  He is called “great” because he managed to live longer than any other pharaoh and used the time to build more monuments to himself than all his predecessors and successors combined.  He had a factory that just turned out busts of his head so that he could knock the heads off other pharaohs’ statues and put his in their place.  Therefore, fifty percent of the monuments in the Nile Valley are his!  He advertised himself shamelessly: painting and carving the story of the Battle of Kadesh on every wall and pillar in sight.  Kadesh was not even a draw and Rameses quickly signed a peace treaty with the victorious Hittite King, and went back to Egypt with his tail between his legs (or maybe it was just his kilt).  He nearly got himself killed at Kadesh and almost lost the whole Egyptian army due to his egotistical rash decisions and actions as an inexperienced military leader (he was the Decider), but he declared near defeat as victory, and covered up the fact that he almost lost the farm – not just for himself, but for the entire kingdom of Egypt.  And that’s why G.W. Bush’s recent rewrite of his history reminds me of Ramses the Great, pharaoh of the biblical exodus, if you believe.  G.W. became president of the United States by the skin of his teeth and the lies on his lips: the same way Ramses II became “Great.”  – 11/04.

Related article:  ALICE and YUYA  Moses the Egyptian.

WAR and RUMORS of WAR

Not since Watergate and Nixon has so much been said about the bald lies and active criminality of our rulers.  There’s no hero or other path to save us.  We were already in a twilight phase of our greatness when befuddled Ronald Reagan declared “morning in America.”  Twenty years later, the “boy emperor” George W. Bush, took us fully into the Dark Ages, pursuing shortsighted goals accelerating our decline.  We see signs of the West after Rome’s fall: religion triumphant over reason; education and critical thinking decayed; religion, state, and the apparatus of torture integrated – the central horror of the pre-Enlightenment; and our culture politically and economically marginalized.  It’s a process no society can undergo and still remain free.  Yet the capitalists, Republicans, and neoconservative fundamentalist Christian American population are aggressively proud of it.

Bush believed he was on a mission from god, and faith trumps fact.  Yet, if a nation can’t see reality correctly and persists in acting upon faith-based delusions, its ability to hold its own in the world is pretty much foreclosed.  We survey a cultural death valley: secondary schools with teachers afraid to teach evolution to un-evolved students; pervasive hostility toward science from benighted legislators; religion used to explain terror as a cosmic conflict between good and evil rather than in terms of political process.  In a New York Times poll, 59% of Americans believe that the faithful will be taken up into heaven in the ‘Rapture’ (perhaps, in blue jackets and tennis shoes?  I propose straitjackets).

Fundamentalism and democracy are foes.  The opposite of Enlightenment is tribalism, groupthink, and blind obedience.  Detention without trial, denial of attorneys, years of interrogation in isolation are now standard American practice, and many Americans don’t care.  The Bush administration discussed canceling the 2004 presidential election citing possible terrorist attack!  Since it wasn’t done, it was obviously safer and easier (for them) to rig electronic voting (see John Conyers’ D-Ohio report).  In the 2003 University of Connecticut “State of the First Amendment Survey,” 34% of Americans said the amendment went “too far;” 46% thought there was too much press freedom; 28% felt newspapers shouldn’t publish without government approval; 31% wanted public protest of war outlawed during war; and 50% thought government should infringe the freedom of “certain religious groups” in the name of the war on terror.

Advertisers and politicians assure us we’re the richest, most envied people on earth and that’s why rag-tag bombers want to blow us up.  We’re not actually people in the eyes of national ownership; we’re unreliable consumers comprising an overworked, underpaid work force not in the best of health (we’re 37^th behind Saudi Arabia, the former Texas Whitehouse’s Best Friend).  Despite Halliburton’s boom profits, Bush’s wars of aggression made us broke.  We borrow $4 billion per day to keep afloat.  Who finally pays this massive debt?

How eager we are to be slaves.  Bush said he was a “wartime president,” but there’s no war, despite all his murder and destruction, “terror” is an abstract noun like “liar”.  Bush’s illegal unilateral ravaging of Iraq isn’t moral or legal because he appeared to be elected twice.  He’s done things we’d impeach him for under the old republic, but corrupt Republicans at all levels of government, including the judiciary, protect him by not doing their duty to impeach him, let’s say, for his incompetence in Louisiana.  “Nice job, Brownie,” my ass.

Our founders thought two-year terms for congress was as much democracy as we’d need, so they didn’t provide recall legislation in the event a president wasn’t up to the job and lost the people’s confidence between elections.  Thus, since “all things come to pass,” as Ecclesiastes has it, we had to wait until most of our citizens were hurt before he left office to go hide in his second Eden in Crawford.  We’re paying interest on his awful debts, and the troops not killed or maimed have to settle for just being alive and in one piece.  Or, would, if Obama wasn’t now abusing them.

Related article:  WAR and TOXIC TEXAS TEXTBOOKS  Waging War from a Burning House.

BLAST FROM THE PAST:

“Inflammatory oratory and a radical catchall program, important as they were for a fledgling party out to attract attention and recruit mass support, were not enough, and Hitler turned his attention to providing more…  What the masses needed, he thought, were not only ideas – a few simple ideas, that is, that he could ceaselessly hammer through their skulls – but symbols that would win their faith, pageantry and color that would arouse them, and acts of violence and terror, which if successful, would attract adherents (were not most Germans drawn to the strong?) and give them a sense of power over the weak.

“In Vienna, …he was intrigued by what he called the ‘infamous spiritual and physical terror’ which he thought was employed by the Social Democrats against their opponents.  Now he turned it to good purpose in his own anti-Socialist party,  …Hitler organized a bunch of roughneck war veterans into ‘strong-arm’ squads…These uniformed rowdies… soon took to breaking up [meetings] of other parties.  Hitler boasted to police, ‘We got what we wanted.  Ballerstedt did not speak.’  As Hitler told an audience some months before, ‘The National Socialist Movement will in the future ruthlessly prevent – if necessary by force – all meetings or lectures that are likely to distract the minds of our fellow countrymen.’”

– William L. Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Related article:  REPUBLICAN INSURANCE NAZIS

Last Words:

“I have no friends in the diamond trade.”  – bumpersticker.

Buddha Swirl

BUDDHA at JLegry’s Gallery

BLOODY DIRTY OIL

Why Obama Should Put BP Under Temporary Receivership by Robert Reich June 1, 2010 by Robert Reich’s Blog

It’s time for the federal government to put BP under temporary receivership, which gives the government authority to take over BP’s operations in the Gulf of Mexico until the gusher is stopped. This is the only way for the public to know what’s going on, be confident enough resources are being used to stop the gusher, ensure BP’s strategy is correct, know the government has enough clout to force BP to use a different one if necessary, and be sure the President is ultimately in charge.

If the government can take over giant global insurer AIG and auto giant General Motors and replace their CEOs, in order to keep them financially solvent, it should be able to put BP’s north American operations into temporary receivership in order to stop one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.

The Obama administration keeps saying BP is in charge because BP has the equipment and expertise necessary to do what’s necessary. Under temporary receivership, BP would continue to have the equipment and expertise. The only difference: the firm would unambiguously be working in the public’s interest. As it is now, BP is responsible first to its shareholders, not to the American public. As a result, the public continues to worry that a private for-profit corporation is responsible for stopping a public tragedy.

[Five reasons for taking such action:]

The President should temporarily take over BP’s Gulf operations. We have a national emergency on our hands. No president would allow a nuclear reactor owned by a private for-profit company to melt down in the United States while remaining under the direct control of that company. The oil meltdown in the Gulf is the environmental equivalent.  READ MORE:  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/01-5

Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written twelve books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Supercapitalism. His “Marketplace” commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes. 

 BP Clashes with Scientists over Deep Sea Oil Pollution

Oil Plumes

 Obama team ‘incensed at being kept in the dark’ as company denies existence of underwater oil clouds  by Chris McGreal June 1, 2010 by The Guardian/UK

BP has challenged widespread scientific claims that vast plumes of oil are spreading underwater from its blown-out rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The denial comes as the oil giant prepares for a new operation to put an end to the worst oil spill in US history – which could see the leak get worse before it gets better.  The company’s challenge to scientific studies puts it further at odds with an increasingly angry Obama administration, which accuses BP of minimizing the size of the leak to limit the size of probable fines.

BP’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, said it had no evidence of underwater oil clouds. “The oil is on the surface. Oil has a specific gravity that’s about half that of water. It wants to get to the surface because of the difference in specific gravity.”  Hayward’s assertion flies in the face of studies by scientists at universities in Florida, Georgia and Mississippi, among others, who say they have detected huge underwater plumes of oil, including one 120 metres (400ft) deep about 50 miles from the destroyed rig.

BP’s claim is likely to further anger environmentalists and the White House, which is increasingly suspicious of the company’s claims to be frank and transparent. The president’s environmental adviser Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy director, Carol Browner, has accused BP of misstating the scale of the leak.

The start of the hurricane season has added more urgency stop the oil flow.

Forecasters are predicting an unusually high number of storms over the next six months. A hurricane is likely to disperse oil spread on the sea over a wider area and push it deeper into marshlands and other inland areas, making the environmental disaster worse.

The US military has ruled out taking charge. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, said military chiefs looked at available equipment and concluded “the best technology in the world, with respect to that, exists in the oil industry.”

A day earlier, the former US secretary of state, Colin Powell, said the military should step in because the crisis was now “beyond the capacity” of BP to stop. “.READ MORE:  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/01-2  

Nigeria’s Agony Dwarfs the Gulf Oil Spill. The US and Europe Ignore It 

Nigeria's Agony

The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta have had to live with environmental catastrophes for decades by John Vidal, environment editor Sunday, May 30, 2010 by The Observer/UK 

We reached the edge of the oil spill near the Nigerian village of Otuegwe after a long hike. Ahead lay swamp. We waded into the warm tropical water and began swimming, cameras and notebooks held above our heads. We could smell the oil long before we saw it – the stench of garages and rotting vegetation hanging thickly in the air.

 The farther we travelled, the more nauseous it became. Soon we were swimming in pools of light Nigerian crude, the best-quality oil in the world. One of the many hundreds of 40-year-old pipelines that crisscross the Niger delta had corroded and spewed oil for months.  Forest and farmland were now covered in a sheen of greasy oil. Drinking wells were polluted and people were distraught. No one knew how much oil had leaked. “We lost our nets, huts and fishing pots,” said Chief Promise, village leader of Otuegwe and our guide. “This is where we fished and farmed. We have lost our forest. We told Shell of the spill within days, but they did nothing for six months.”

In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta’s network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico.  Worse may be to come. One industry insider said: “Major spills are likely to increase in coming years as the industry tries to extract oil from increasingly remote and difficult terrains. Future supplies will be offshore, deeper and harder to work. When things go wrong, it will be harder to respond.”  Spills, leaks and deliberate discharges are happening in oilfields all over the world and few people seem to care.  Big oil companies act as if they are beyond the law.  What we conclude from the Gulf of Mexico pollution incident is that the oil companies are out of control.  It is clear that BP has been blocking progressive legislation, both in the US and here. In Nigeria, they have been living above the law. They are now clearly a danger to the planet. The dangers of this happening again and again are high. They must be taken to the international court of justice.  READ MORE: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/05/30-0

BP Faces FBI Probe over Oil Spill by Giles Whittell, Robert Lea, Ian King June 1, 2010 by TimesOnline/UK  

BP’s future as a global concern was at stake tonight after the US Attorney General, announced that he was launching a criminal and a civil investigation into the Louisiana oil spill.

As Eric Holder made his announcement, the British company’s chief executive fought to halt a headlong slide in its stock price.

After losing a third of its value in just six weeks, BP is expected to promise shareholders their full annual dividend in a last-ditch bid to retain their loyalty. More than £12 billion was wiped off the company’s value today alone, as Mr Obama dispatched his top prosecutor to Louisiana and vowed to bring to justice those responsible for what he called “the greatest environmental disaster of its kind in our history”.

Shares in what used to be Britain’s biggest company endured their worst day’s trading in more than two decades, dragging down the FTSE 100 index and with it the value of dozens of leading pension funds.

Any cut in BP’s dividend would be a traumatic event for the company. It last cut its payout to shareholders in August 1992 after reporting its first-ever quarterly loss.

With much of today’s share price fall being attributed to fears that the company may have to cut its dividend, BP’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, is expected later this week to assure investors that the payout will be maintained.

The company’s share price fell to as low as 412.25p at one stage today before a partial rally. That followed an admission from BP that the cost of its repeated failed bids to stem the flow from the blow out, the clean-up operation, and early payments of claims by affected American and by states around the Gulf has already topped $1 billion. BP is privately putting the total cost of the disaster at $4 billion by the end of the year.  READ MORE:  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/01-6

Israel Reveals Its True Face

The murder of these peace activists will count. Sanctions must surely be the price by Ahdaf Soueif June 1, 2010 by The Guardian/UK

This will count. A flotilla of relief boats attacked in international waters. Armed commandos boarding a vessel carrying supplies for a besieged civilian population. More than 10 peace activists reported killed. This has to be made to count.

The dead have joined Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall, James Miller and Brian Avery in giving up their lives for the Palestinians. None of these young men and women went out to die or wanted to die or was accepting of death. Each and every one of them ultimately believed that they were safe; that there was a boundary – call it a boundary of legality, a boundary of civilisation – that Israel would not cross. They were wrong. And in proving them wrong, Israel has revealed, once again, its true face to the world.

My anger and my sadness are so great that I have to deliberately draw a deep breath from time to time to ease the bands I feel around my chest. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that millions of people in the world are feeling the same. People everywhere see and understand what is happening. Many of us feel that Palestine is nearing its South Africa moment. This latest outrage must push it closer. And it will.  READ MORE: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/01-2

Ahdaf Soueif is an Egyptian writer, novelist, political and cultural commentator

Related article:  NOTHING IS HOLY IN THE “HOLY” LAND:  Any claim to “holiness” in ownership of the “Holy” Land, by any constituent of any side, is preposterous.  People of every persuasion have been killing each other over this crap hunk of real estate for thousands of years, to no apparent resolution, pretty much to malign purpose, and to the point of certifiable mental disease.  READ MORE:  FOX NEWS, HOLY LAND, SUPERMAN

SIGN THE PETITION

PETITION FROM AVAAZ

Dear Friends,

Israel’s deadly assault on a flotilla of aid ships headed for Gaza has shocked the world.

It’s an outrageous use of lethal force to defend an outrageous and lethal policy — Israel’s blockade of Gaza, where two thirds of families don’t know where they’ll find their next meal.

The UN, US, and nearly every other government and multilateral organization have called on Israel to lift the blockade and, now, for a full investigation of the flotilla raid.  But their words aren’t backed by action. The European Union, Israel’s top trading partner, could change Israel’s course — if the people of Europe and the world demand it.

Let’s call on Catherine Ashton, EU Foreign Affairs High Representative, to demand that Israel comply with an international enquiry and lift the Gaza blockade — or lose its special trade relationship with Europe. To be heard, we’ll need a massive outcry; click to sign the petition and then forward this message.