Happy Winter Solstice! We Won!

Una vittoria per la libertà di criticare, di scambiarsi informazioni e raggiungere i fatti. Un caso in più per far valere i propri diritti all'informazione - soprattutto quando dietro la maschera di un guaritore si nasconde un venditore di farmaci altamente dannosi per la salute psichica del 'paziente'.

Tutto iniziò così:

Hocus pocus, free speech in focus

Ora, su Signs of the Times, l'ultimo aggiornamento:


SOTT Editors
SOTT.net
Sun, 21 Dec 2008 08:50 UTC

On December 18th, 2008 an Opinion and Order was handed down by Chief Judge Ancer L. Haggerty of the Oregon court in civil case 08-233-HA, brought by Eric Pepin's Higher Balance Institute against Quantum Future Group, Quantum Future School, Signs of the Times and Laura Knight-Jadczyk. The case claimed libel/defamation, false light and intentional interference with economic relations. The case was answered with a special motion to strike the claims under Oregon's anti-SLAPP statutes. This Opinion and Order was the court's judgment on that special motion.

To cut to the chase, because this news is just too good to wait until Christmas to unwrap, the anti-SLAPP motion was granted and the claims of Higher Balance Institute have been stricken. In the process, the term "horse hockey" has been enshrined in American Case Law.

For those who have not followed this case from the beginning, SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation. According to wikipedia, it is "a lawsuit or a threat of lawsuit that is intended to intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition." Judge Haggerty's opinion not only affirms the assertion that HBI had filed suit against Laura, SOTT, et al to silence this voice, but that such attacks are not acceptable in the eyes of the law.

To briefly recap the core of the case, we quote from Judge Haggerty's opinion:

On November 4, 2007, Knight-Jadczyk re-posted portions of The Oregonian newspaper articles concerning Pepin's arrest and acquittal and posted her own commentary which included, in part, the following: "It's really starting to look like this Eric Pepin and his Higher Balance Institute is merely a COINTELPRO and a front for pedophilia."

The court notes that plaintiff focuses its argument upon the "front for pedophilia" posting, and does not advance specific arguments regarding Knight-Jadczyk's other posting. The court has conducted an independent review of Knight-Jadcyzk's other comments and concludes that the following analysis is applicable to all of her postings.

On that same date, Knight-Jadczyk also responded to a post from another forum user who asserted that HBI serves a valid purpose to those seeking answers. Knight-Jadczyk posted, in part, the following:

Horse hockey. There is nothing there except a pathological deviant and his deviant followers conning the public. There's nothing at all about "waking up" there. For example, most meditation will do little but put you back to sleep. It's an act of self-calming and falling into confluence with the psychopathic reality.

Plaintiff's claims against Knight-Jadczyk, therefore, rely upon her assertions that "HBI is a 'front for pedophilia;' HBI is a "cointelpro" organization; HBI markets nothing more than an act of "falling into confluence with a psychopathic reality;" and HBI is "conning" the public. [...]

This court concludes that the postings by Knight-Jadczyk constitute information provided by "another content provider" under Section 230 of the CDA. Therefore, defendants SOTT, QFG, and QFS are immunized against those postings by the CDA. Because plaintiff cannot show a probability of prevailing on its claims against QFG, QFS, and SOTT, involving either the moderators' postings or Knight-Jadczyk's postings, the applicable anti-SLAPP statutes compel that the claims against these defendants are stricken. [...]

Defendant Knight-Jadczyk concedes that the CDA does not prohibit claims against her based on her own postings. Nevertheless, plaintiff cannot show a probability of succeeding on its claims against Knight-Jadczyk individually. [...]

Plaintiff maintains that Knight-Jadczyk's statements are false and defamatory. A defamatory statement is a factual assertion that subjects another to "hatred, contempt or ridicule" or tends "to diminish the esteem, respect, goodwill or confidence in which [the other] is held or to excite adverse, derogatory or unpleasant feelings or opinions against [the other]." [...]

Whether a statement is capable of a defamatory meaning is a question for the court. [...]

This court concludes that Knight-Jadczyk's statements constitute protected opinion.[...]

Finally, the court examined whether the postings were sufficiently factual to be susceptible of being proven. This examination also supports concluding that the postings constitute protected opinion. [...]

For the reasons provided, QFG's Special Motion to Strike Complaint, Knight-Jadczyk's Special Motion to Strike Complaint [28], and QFS and SOTT's Special Motion to Strike Complaint are granted.

What has actually happened here is that Truth and reason have prevailed. The stating of opinion, and in this case opinion that is backed up by documented fact, is constitutionally protected free speech! That we celebrate this as a great victory, which it is, reveals a great deal about the times in which we live; dark times, indeed. Judge Haggerty's opinion was by no means a foregone conclusion. HBI makes a lot of money while SOTT and Laura Knight-Jadczyk do not. Without the generous donations and encouragement from readers of SOTT that allowed the hiring of a crack team of attorneys from the firm of Cooper, White & Cooper LLP, along with a whole lot of work by people who are already overworked, things could have turned out very differently.

Imagine that scenario for a moment: HBI prevails or at least achieves their likely goal of simply burying Laura and SOTT under a mountain of debt. Not only would SOTT and the SOTT forum be silenced, but all voices of truth on the Internet would be one step closer to the same fate. The potential ramifications of this case were enormous.

So, the timing of this ruling, on the cusp of the Winter Solstice, is downright poetic. The long nights are coming to an end. Light and warmth are returning, Spring is just around the corner. But what does that really mean?

We might be tempted to relax, figuring that justice will finally prevail. After all, it really does seem like a new day is dawning, doesn't it? The eight year Winter of the Bush administration is almost behind us. A new administration is being formed, lead by the first African American President of the United States, and the freedom to speak our minds even against those with the wealth to put the wheels of the justice system in motion against us has been affirmed.

But this is not a time to relax. Celebrate, yes, but not relax. This light in the darkness should give us hope, but not the false belief that everything is now made right and there is no more work to do! Make no mistake about it, this victory in the courts does not bring an end to attacks on our freedom of speech, nor does it necessarily gain any new ground in the struggle to end oppression. What has been won is the holding of a position. We have not stepped further backward toward greater oppression, but more attacks are happening now, and even more are coming. You can take that to the bank (assuming the bank hasn't gone bust!)

This victory does give us hope. The Goliaths with their money and the ability to wield the legal system that comes along with it can be beaten by the Davids. It doesn't happen by merely hoping or placing blind trust in "the system" and "having faith" that truth will win in the end. This David had to fight, fight hard, and fight with eyes open wide to the reality of the situation; and with help from many others. That is the hope. With knowledge, understanding and networking, we can fight!

Every culture has some sort of celebration in the dead of Winter, whether it be solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the New Year, whatever. These celebrations all involve the coming together of friends and family to share food, to share warmth, and to help those in need. For too many of us, those aspects of the celebrations have become habitual obligations. Having grown up In an age of well stocked grocery stores and energy for heat and light delivered right to our houses, it's easy to lose sight of the need to work together that is part and parcel of Winter celebrations. We go through the motions, but do we remember what is behind those motions?

The Goliaths can be fought, but not by lone Davids. In every fight, sacrifices must be made. Those in the thick of the battle make the greatest sacrifices, but their sacrifices will amount to nothing without the support of others. Even if that support is only a small donation of money, it is meaningful and vital in that it is part of a community working together toward the common goal, in this case defending free speech. As the environment warms and life seems to get easier, do we relax our vigilance, or do we fight even harder against oppression?

Like this case, Winter Solstice brings the hope of better days ahead. But do not forget that the coldest months follow the Solstice. It takes a while for the 'light' and warmth to gain dominance again. There is still so much to do. Political prisoners are still being tortured, children are still being starved and killed, entire populations are still being exploited, and bailouts are still being handed out to the wealthy as you and I struggle to make ends meet. All of these taken together as just "me against the world" can be overwhelming. Facing these problems with the vain hope that a new administration or anyone else will fix it all, or that somehow justice will prevail while we sleep,will lead to nothing but more problems.

Facing these problems by working, and working together, to overcome them can lead to positive results. We have just seen it happen.

For today, thanks to the work of Laura Knight-Jadczyk, the SOTT team and everyone who has given time, money or any other form of support to this fight, Internet freedom of speech has not taken the severe blow it could have taken. For that, we can and should give thanks. How we give thanks is the key. I propose the best thanks that can be given, the only thanks that is meaningful, is to use this for-the-moment protected Internet freedom of speech while we still have it. Use it for everything it is worth.

What has been won is our ability to continue to speak and learn in the open, for the time being. Take this opportunity. Read SOTT and discuss what you read on the forum and elsewhere. Knowledge protects. Get some while the fruit is still relatively easy to reach.

Happy Winter Solstice - the promise of the Return of the Light!

Alaska, God and the Elections

I'm wondering about all those HAARP's antennas up there...

Sarah Palin's Show

from: Connecting the Dots: Palin Ascends, Your Savings Plummet, The World Steps Into The Twilight Zone

Sleepwalking into disaster, the human race appears to have crossed the point of no return in more than one area:

- The American people are playing with fire by supporting religious extremist and political dunce Sarah Palin - and they will get burned.

- In the process they may also burn a considerable portion of the rest of the world.

- Synchronously, the financial system gets the last, gentle push over the abyss; hungry and poor people will provide lots of excuses for fascism - some will even ask for it.

- The climate is acting up, as it usually does during this time of the year, but the Sun is not behaving according to expected cycles, and together with a few clues here and there, we wonder if something in the cosmic/geophysical system has not changed for good.

Hockey Mom Fascism

Here's the big ominous news of the month: A fundamentalist, hawkish, power-hungry, far-right, predatory-capitalist and not very bright woman; rumored to be racist and proven to care naught for the environment, with disturbing links to sinister Christian extremist churches has been tapped as the Republicans vice presidential nominee. She happens to be pleasant enough to the eye (more than John McCain anyway) and calls herself a "hockey mom" and, wonder of wonders, that's all the qualifications the American people seem to need to swing massively to her camp. Indeed, just when everyone was counting on modern messiah Obama to come and 'save us' from George & Dick (there's no chance of that, but never mind), along comes Sarah Palin with all the appeal that John McCain (a man who displays all the charisma of an Egyptian mummy) lacks.

Which is worse - what will happen to the US and the world if the Republicans remain in the White House (as they most probably will), or the fact that a zombie nation is fast asleep while this is happening? And where did we see this very same script before?

Oh, yes, it was the 1930s and a blue collar little (one could say funny) man, with certain religious views, and an army of Aryan soldiers ready to die for his pathological paramoralisms, was rising to power in Germany. A few people were able to see Hitler for who he was and what the consequences of his reign would be. Among them was a journalist named Fritz Gerlich, who paid with his life for his work, and Sebastian Haffner, who lived to tell us the story in a manuscript found and published by his son after his death, titled Defying Hitler. Haffner, with great insight paints a vivid portrait of "what led so many ordinary Germans to join with or acquiesce to the Nazi program", placing personal responsibility on each German citizen for the consequences of this action or inaction. He wrote:

"... It may seem a paradox, but it is nonetheless the simple truth, to say that on the contrary, the decisive historical events take place among us, the anonymous masses. The most powerful dictators, ministers, and generals are powerless against the simultaneous mass decisions taken individually and almost unconsciously by the population at large... Decisions that influence the course of history arise out of the individual experiences of thousands or millions of individuals."

We know what happened in Nazi Germany, yet today we complacently wonder to ourselves: "how could the German people have allowed Hitler to do what he did? How cruel and inhuman were they to allow the Nazis to perpetrate such horrendous crimes!"

Perhaps some of you think we are being too alarmist or pessimistic about Palin. After all, the Republicans haven't won the election yet and although they did creep ahead in the polls for a while, Obama seems to be back on top, right? And if he wins, who knows, maybe he could turn out to be a man of the people who plays the game well enough to get into a position from which he could do some good?

We at SOTT have a problem with this view. Experience has taught us that there are no real elections in modern Western Democracies, and that the American people in particular do not have the luxury of actually electing anyone at this point in time. By now, the means and methods for stealing elections have been perfected by the right wing Christian fundies, and they are planning to do it again. Yes folks, election theft for 2008 is already underway!

Since the McCain ticket was not doing that well (how to convince the people that McCain won if he is so far behind Obama?) they brought out the 'heavy weapons', the mom of our worst nightmares, in the hope that she will appeal to all other mothers and women. McCain and Palin are playing the 'Sisterhood' card with barely-disguised cynicism. As if normal women share any kind of real femininity with Ms. Pitbull. When the final results are known, we'll probably be told that McCain and Palin won by a short margin, and the media commentators will tell us that the "hockey mom" factor convinced those few who did not make up their minds until the last minute.

So there you have it. The only thing they really need to establish during the campaign is a plausible explanation for a 'victory', and they can only do so if the masses are asleep. It is in the sense of being awake (or not) that we, the anonymous masses, are responsible for the outcome. People who are awake and aware are immune to fraud.

Palin, if nothing else, stands for everything that is against true femininity and motherhood. She and that army of trained faithful warriors are ready to give their lives for paramoralisms and psychopathic dogmas, spreading death and destruction on their path. Sound familiar?

Palin is a member of a cult with laughable beliefs, yet the bunch of them have, over the last two decades, infiltrated the American political sphere, and turned the country, slowly but surely, into a police state. They took over the media and for years have been brainwashing millions of people, remembering all the while, that "education" starts at a young age.

Palin, their blue-collar muse, believes that the war in Iraq is an act of God, and proudly sends her son to do God's will, because, "Hey! It's about time for that Rapture and only we, the 'Chosen' will be saved, but those others have to go". Those 'others' by the way, include the vast majority of ordinary people, people like you and me. Behind Palin are the same hands that have been playing Bush all along - the Dominionists .

To put it charitably, Palin is a woman of dubious intelligence. She can't answer a question that is not in her script and believes that the earth is 6000 years old, despite all geological, scientific evidence. She is clearly dangerously delusional.

This mean, cruel woman's policies favor killing endangered animals and destroying Mother Earth.

This inhuman woman, incapable of empathy, voted that the raped women of Alaska had to pay for their own forensic examinations. Her right-wing fundamentalist policies are against families and women in general.

This hypocritical woman uses people to achieve her goals and took the hard-earned money of Alaskans to spend it on her cult, as reported here.

And she has a good chance of becoming the president of the US. McCain is too old and has health issues, and yes, everything shows that he will win. Hear it from the mouth of an expert. Besides, the Rothschild family - the system's ultimate insiders - do not bet on a horse to see it lose the race. And it seems that they are betting a bundle on McCain.

Another alarming aspect is that we are seeing a lot of pressure being put on women in these elections. As the Women's Voices, Women Vote put it:

[...] unmarried women "have the potential to elect the next President." In an email, WVWV writes that "While married women favored McCain over Barack Obama by 49 to 42 percent, unmarried women supported Obama over McCain by 60 to 30 percent...Numbering 53 million, these single, separated, divorced and widowed women represent 26 percent of the voting age population." Add to this that for the first time in history, almost as many adult American women are unmarried as married, and we can see why Sarah Palin may have been a political choice for the GOP.

We wonder whether these women will be the scapegoats when the rigged election results show that the next four years will be even worse than the eight previous ones with Bush; "Hey, they were the ones responsible, not the Diebold machines". All these millions of "single, separated, divorced and widowed women".... Uppity women, anyone?

We wonder also whether most of them will wake up and realize that while Palin is marketed as being the female and the mother, in reality her being and core beliefs are slaying everything feminine. Some already have.

Will the rest of us? Will we heed Haffner's words and allow our decisions to change the course of history? Because as is shown below, in all respects, the world is currently not a happy-go-lucky place at all!


Welcome to Gilead, Governor Palin!

If you've ever read Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, The Handmaid's Tale, you will recall the key role that was played by the women assigned to be the "Aunts." The story revolves around a futuristic American society in which fundamentalist Christians install a gender-based caste system where each woman is assigned a specific societal function. It is a commentary on the dangerous erasing of the line between church and state in the contemporary United States.

The merging of religion and government is carried out by a group of older, white male "commanders" whose propaganda demands that citizens be constantly terrorized into submission and obedience. The resulting regime is Atwood's vision of the worst-case scenario: an American police-state theocracy where every woman's identity is reduced to her sexual attributes, and each is assigned to a category based on her physical qualifications. Subtle references to racist philosophy are mixed into the literalist religious rhetoric.

The attractive young women of reproductive age are the "handmaids"; the attractive but infertile middle-age women are the "wives"; the dark-skinned women of any age are domestic servants, and so on. All women are forbidden from reading or writing. The country is renamed the Republic of Gilead, a reference to the biblical homeland of the patriarchs. And the Aunts - who are middle-aged white women of some previous prestige and education - are especially sinister characters. The primary job of the Aunts is to keep the handmaids (the childbearers) subservient.

They go about this by convincing the handmaids that they are powerless and can only contribute to society when they fulfill their God-given responsibility to serve the commanders. The Aunts' job, put simply, is to exploit other women by keeping them submissive and telling them that it's for the good of all (and even more insidiously, that in obeying, the handmaids "empower" themselves.) What makes the Aunts so remarkable is their collective failure to realize that they are simply being used by the commanders to keep other women in line, and their willingness - glee, even - at doing so is simultaneously sad and terrifying.

So what compels the Aunts to become traitors to both their sex and their country? First, they believe that their contribution to the repressive social order is righteous, and second, they've found that under this rigid system of social control, they have the illusion of a tiny bit of power.

Does any of this sound familiar? It should. Governor and Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin is the Gileadian "Aunt" manifested. Her sudden emergence onto the American political scene, accompanied by a burst of enthusiasm on the part of many American women, is a surreal example of life imitating art. Much of Palin's rhetoric, tactics and personal philosophy seem to be taken directly from the Auntie training manual.

By accepting the position on the GOP ticket despite her astonishing lack of qualifications, Palin signaled that she was prepared to be used - on the basis of her sex alone - in exchange for the promise of status and power.

Refer to Palin's RNC convention speech, which was mostly a fawning homage to McCain's patriotism and leadership, sprinkled with condescending references to Obama as "our opponent." Although the lines were delivered with Palin's own folksy vernacular and over-enunciation, it was not Palin, but McCain - or more accurately, the GOP elders at whose feet he finds himself on election eve - who wrote the speech and whose voice echoed through the hall that night in St. Paul. Women who find themselves drawn to Palin because they think she epitomizes the classic "woman who has it all" might want to take a closer look. Sarah Palin was picked for the ticket solely because of - not despite - the fact that she is female. By keeping her sequestered from the media, McCain has confirmed he does not have faith in an unscripted Palin's ability to represent the campaign to the world.

By going along with it, Palin is telling us that she's perfectly fine with being controlled by her male superiors. And by portraying herself as the candidate of the empowered woman (while simultaneously promoting policy that is openly hostile to the interests of working and middle-class American women), she reveals the sad truth about how little progress we've actually made.

Lest we think that Senator McCain is hesitant to keep pushing this stereotype in the face of abysmal performances by Palin in news interviews, the most recent reports reveal that his campaign intends to hype the expected wedding between Palin's pregnant daughter and her boyfriend, the date of which is apparently being set just prior to the November election - with McCain and Palin sitting in the front row.

Is it possible that Sarah Palin is just blissfully un-self-aware, or is it that she so eager for any illusion of power that she'll allow herself to be marketed no matter what the cost to the dignity of all women? If Palin were truly an empowered woman, she would have refused to allow herself and her daughter to be used in this manner - to assist a party whose rhetoric and imagery promote the ideal woman as deferential to established norms rather than acting as an independent - or critical - thinker.

If her selection was intended to signal to American women that empowerment is possible, why is Palin being kept under lock and key? Clearly, this is not an individual whose intelligence or perspective McCain respects, or else he would permit her to speak for herself. To continue pretending that Palin's selection was anything other than an attempt to manipulate the voting public on the basis of a straitjacketed view of sexual roles is a dangerous lie that no American of any gender can afford to abide.

Jesus plus nothing: Undercover among America's secret theocrats

Palin Can't Name Any Newspapers Or Magazines That She Reads

Palin: 'Only Flag in My Office' Is Israeli

Excerpts from the New Messiahs

By Katherine Yurica

Storm Warning! Dark Days Ahead!

Laura Knight-Jadczyk
SOTT.net
Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:28 EDT

Today is the anniversary of the Beginning of the End.

It has been seven long, bloody years since our planet was set on a path of global conflict and self-destruction by a gang of psychopaths who thought it would be a good idea to take control of the world by staging a false flag attack on the U.S.A. a la Hitler and the Reichstag. Well over a million Iraqis and tens of thousands of young men from America and its "partners," both the coerced and the bought and paid for kind, are dead.

This cabal of rapacious gangsters have shocked, raped, pillaged and plundered the patrimony of America to the extent that U.S. citizens must now make choices between whether to eat or stay warm, assuming they have a roof over their head at all. The infrastructure of a once-proud nation has rotted away, both psychologically and physically. Today, the American government is a global pariah, and the American people are headed for the trash heap of history.

At the same time, the planet is facing challenges of another kind - climate change - that, even without global war, will take a devastating toll likely in terms of billions of humans and animals, not to mention the flora that underpins life in our world. Already millions are dead and more are dying due to "human caused" global suffering and lack of foresight in respect of the climate and our resources.

Meanwhile, the US presidential election farce is rolling merrily along even though we know that none of the pathological morons seeking the highest public office in the land have any intention of doing anything significant to change the trajectory of our unhappy civilization. I find it ironic that the US election process, long known by insiders to be a contest of "electability" based on appearance, now includes a bona-fide beauty queen. It was bad enough when an actor was elected to act as president...

But I digress.

Through it all, SOTT.net has worked day and night, from around the globe, to keep you - the reader - up to date on those things crucial not only to your awakening, but your very survival. Even before it all began, before SOTT was even thought to be a necessary venue for understanding what is going on here on the BBM, I was seeking the answers to just what is wrong with our world in other respects via years of research culminating in the Cassiopaean Experiment. That experiment led to the book "High Strangeness" which has recently been reviewed by Richard Dolan, author of UFOs and the National Security State: History of a Cover-up. His encouragement has been most welcome. It was in the context of the Cs material, which dovetailed so perfectly with Richard's hard, factual, documentary research, that the understanding of our current reality was framed, and that understanding has not only stood the test of time, it has been remarkably accurate time and time again.

But it hasn't been easy. It has cost us dearly in almost every imaginable way. And it continues. I am writing today because SOTT.net is in a state of emergency and not for the first time this year, either! We have definitely been experiencing stormy weather in more ways than one. Even though it is the time for our usual fund raiser which we hold twice a year to supplement book sales (SOTT will never go commercial!), SOTT again faces additional financial burdens that we hope our readers will share with us.

Attacks against our work began even before SOTT.net came into existence, and those assaults only intensified in the period following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Over the course of the past 6 years, as we have continued to expose the manipulations of the Pathocrats and the lies and deceit that define their game of global chess, the pressure to silence us has increased exponentially.

As most of you know, during the early months of this year, SOTT.net, QFG, Inc, and yours truly, were slammed with a vicious lawsuit that threatens everything that SOTT.net and the Cassiopaean Experiment stand for: Truth and Freedom. Eric Pepin's Higher Balance Institute was the vehicle for this attack. It may not have been coincidental that this all transpired as I was going into the hospital for major surgery from which I still have not recovered. But that would be just too conspiracy minded! As we wrote at the time:

This is an attack on internet freedom and freedom of speech, plain and simple. If Eric Pepin were to win, based on the accusations in the complaint, it would set a precedent that would reverberate across the world. It would make anyone who had a different opinion or view of the world - other than that which is approved by the PTB - subject to suppression and censure. The issues of psychopathy and conspiracy are specifically named in the complaint as well as the connection between religion and making money. If this suit were to succeed, it would significantly chill further discourse about conspiracies, pathological deviance, mind control methods and real cults, including the Judao-Islamo-Christian dominator trio. It would be a disaster.


Thankfully, regular readers and other supporters came through and we were able to deal with the expense of the first round of legal filings. But there were expenses we didn't count on, like having to fight a second, parallel suit to re-open the sealed criminal records of Eric Pepin. And now, our attorneys tell us that it is likely that, even if the judge moves in favor of our anti-SLAPP motion, Eric Pepin's Higher Balance Institute is likely to appeal. One way or the other our attorney's will have to argue the case in court and Pepin's criminal records will be crucial to our arguments. But, as I said, we won the right to them, and to use them, even if the judge ordered that it must be done "under seal." Pepin has claimed to have "friends in high places," and it may be so.

Now, in addition to our need to fund this legal battle moving forward, Eric Pepin's criminal records must be transcribed by an official transcriber. There are five days of testimony at about 275 pages of transcript per day. It's going to cost a bundle to transcribe and we need to get started right away. And that is only part of the problem!

As I mentioned, we generally have two fund raisers a year to supplement book sales income. However, the state of the economy has hit everyone hard, and that means we are getting hit also. Book sales - our major support - are so low that we have had to implement many cost saving measures. Some of you have noticed changes, (we've had to let back-up and alternate servers go), and there will be more, as we tighten our belts and economize along with everyone else.

Like many others, we can't even pay the bill for the coming winter's heating fuel that was delivered this week. We haven't missed paying our rent up to this point, but next month isn't looking too good! The plain fact is, in addition to being against the wall regarding legal expenses, we again need your help with the monthly expenses of servers, satellite, and related support.

We ALL need to get through this darkest of times together, the beginning of the eighth year after 9-11, and only together can we do it. We want to be able to continue to keep the lighthouse going, to shine the light on the End Games, the players, the plots, the playing field, and keep the warning bells sounding so that other tempest tossed sailors can avoid the rocks, the tricks and traps of the psychopaths in power.

Bottom line is: right now, something's got to give and we hope it isn't going to be us having to give up the fight! We hope that our readers will come through for us again and give so we can keep on giving! If every regular reader of SOTT could manage to give $5, $10, or $20, we can do it!

One thing is certain, we can't do it without YOU!

I mentioned changes above: there will be more. Some of these changes are designed to help us continue our wide-ranging news coverage while, at the same time, minimizing our costs. Our web services, which include our massive news archive, will continue, and in the coming week or so, we will be unveiling the New and Improved SOTT.net. After we are through this Dark and Stormy Night, if we survive it, we plan to add even more features, returning to our weekly podcasts, and adding videos!

SOTT.net needs your increased and continued support! Help us keep the Light House going! Please give as generously as you can and, as always, you have our heartfelt gratitude that you have chosen SOTT.net as your portal to the world.

We haven't given up on Tomorrow!

Click here to donate, or use the form at the top of this page!

US Downfall

That's it. Is difficult to see it when you're in it.

The Dumb, the Stupid, the Clueless and the Uninformed.

from Smoking Mirrors blog - by Les Visible

I’ve been away for awhile… maybe a month or more… maybe I’ve always been away and just drop in on occasion with a new personality for the next period of engagement. It’s hard to know what’s what. Look at the problem people have with reality. They must have a problem with it because they will accept anything but and they generally prefer to be told what is happening rather than look into the situation themselves. By the title of this piece and by your own observations, I guess you know I’m talking about significantly more than half of the population.

I’ve long been of the opinion that all of the great and transformative acts for good that are practiced on this Earth are accomplished by ten percent of the people. I’ve also felt that the majority of evil is accomplished by another ten percent. The people in the middle are the hamburger meat in the fast food restaurant of the times in which we live. Among this group are thirty six personality types and you meet them all as you go and long before you actually leave. There are a handful of unique characters who exemplify their time and there is a much larger group that plays a tape loop over and over again until it wears out. You could no more talk to these people about what is really going on than you could convince them that they have anything to do with it.

These people can go to college and read Kant and Kafka but only for the purposes of conversation… not for any meaningful insight. These writers and the composers and artists are nothing more than suits that these people dress themselves in, in an effort to be admired or get laid by people whose company they richly deserve. They can attend the opera and the ballet (and they deserve that too). They can ponder modern art and then use that, as they use all art and the like as instruments in the service of their vanity… namedropping… repeating the words in scholarly reviews… preening and posturing as if their invented knowledge and limited understanding of something granted them the same cachet as the creator. In respect of most of what is called art, someone still capable of embarrassment wouldn’t even want it. But you can’t embarrass these people. The best you can hope for is to make them angry or feel discriminated against.

However, if you are evil; which is the prevailing fashion accessory of the time, well then… these people are going to hang on your every word and sometimes hang because of them. The more I live the more I begin to think that people get what they deserve and they’ll kill you if you try to protect them from it.

How stupid or clueless do you have to be to still believe what you hear on TV or is reported in the press in any of the mediums it employs? By now with so many lies and so much corruption exposed and increasing by the day how is it possible to still believe the people who lied to you the day before and the day before that? I find it to be a most uncanny magic act. It’s not even very good magic.

My theory is that they send people out into the world to study the types of stupidity and cluelessness that are practiced by the personality types and then they get prototypes to perform it for them so that they can agree with themselves by proxy on whatever BS they’ve assumed to be the truth. It stands to reason that if you can’t accept the truth about yourself, or are far too uninformed to even imagine that such a thing exists, then you can’t accept the truth in any form ever. You can’t and won’t see that 9/11 was an Inside Job. You’re too vain and self-involved to risk censure from those as stupid as yourself. You laugh about it even though you are the target.

You wave little signs that say, “Service” and “Country First” when the only service you are employed in is self service and the only country you possess is the land of ignorance in which your illusions flourish like kudzu along the highway to nowhere that you are traveling on.

You believe that Russia attacked Georgia and not that the Israelis who control Georgia attacked South Ossetia which provoked a Russian response. You believe that Bin Laden is alive and masterminding world terror from a cave in Pakistan when world terror is being formulated in London, Tel Aviv and Washington D.C. You think it’s disgraceful that Sarah Palin has to endure scrutiny about hiding something from people who didn’t bother to look. You wouldn’t know that she was chosen precisely because of her liability by the people who control both sides because it suits their onward agenda for which the fix is already in.

If you’re in the jungle and everything you know about the jungle is a lie then your chances of survival are not very good. They’re even worse when you refuse to accept that your own experiences show you that what you thought to be true was a lie and you just refuse to alter your perceptions even when they are proven to be patently absurd. You’re a marvel really. I can’t imagine what it is to be like you. For me it would be like sitting at the kitchen table and stabbing myself over and over in the back of the hand with a fork while insisting it wasn’t happening.

It doesn’t occur to you that some impending hurricane wasn’t what it was sold as, or that they knew that all along. It doesn’t occur to you to look around and see what else is happening and which this is a distraction from. You don’t make the leap between the callous indifference to Katrina and the self- serving cries from the people who caused the one and are appealing for help and donations for the other. You don’t think to yourself that if they have done so little since Katrina that they are not likely to do much more about anything else unless they… benefit from it.

You just go along to get along until your number comes up and you get to scream, “Why me?” It doesn’t bother you… the millions of dead and destroyed lives. Even when the press which works for the people who did it admits that it was all a lie which caused it you still don’t get it. You can’t fix something if you don’t know why it is broken. You can’t repair something by replacing the wrong part.

That you have not dragged George W. Bush and Dick Cheney out of the White House and hung them in Lafayette Park years ago tells me that you’d rather have dinner with Sacher-Masoch than De Rouchefoucauld even if they or you could speak the necessary English. Of course with Sacher-Masoch you don’t really have to speak… just scream. Pain like music is a universal language and seems to be something you enjoy

You’d better get your act together before it’s too late. Bad shit has a way of happening to stupid people with more frequency depending on just how bone dead stupid they are. You’d better stop waving bumper stickers and believing everything you are told and worse… acting on it as if it were true. It isn’t possible that the ones lying to, feeding on and controlling you have your best interests at heart. They want you worse than dead and they are working on it right now.

Of course… you are probably not reading this. Someone with lacquered hair and a mouthful of lies is probably talking to you and you’re dreaming of shopping and sex regardless of how unattractive you are. You’ll wake up when the sirens fill the air and the building is on fire. That’s usually how it goes. You’ll wonder why you didn’t wake up and how it got to be too late without anyone telling you. That’s how it always goes. But people were telling you… life was telling you… circumstances were telling you… your conscience was telling you but you… you weren’t listening. You weren’t listening because you were dumb, stupid, clueless and uniformed.

Anti-semitism, British Academia and the Israel Lobby

Un attacco ad un'associazione accademica britannica, L'UCU, e la conseguente campagna di diffamazione contro uno dei suoi membri, Jenna Delich, rea di aver incluso un link verso un articolo Joe Quinn (Sott.net) sfortunatamente parcheggiato sul sito del bianco e razzista David Duke.

Fatto è che la Delich non era a conoscenza della figura di Duke; stava solamente linkando ad un articolo del Quinn. Il Quinn da parte sua non era a conoscenza che il suo articolo era stato riprodotto in un tale sito (Duke). Nè la Delich, né il Quinn condividono le idee razziste di David Duke, ma ad ogni modo qualcuno ha preso subito spunto per lanciare una campagna diffamatoria contro i due (Engageonline), accusandoli di antisemitismo e deprecando il chiaro legame tra l'UCU e l'anti-semita David Duke.

Poco dopo ecco la campagna di diffamazione arrivare alle porte del Jerusalem Post. A volte certi "chiari legami" non potrebbero essere montati meglio... alla base di tutto questo l'ennesima conferma che non si può in alcuna maniera criticare le politiche del governo di Israele senza essere tacciati di antisemitismo, come se tutti i cittadini israeliani fossero sempre e comunque a favore delle scelte di quest'ultimo, come dire che un attacco alle politiche italiane nelle vesti del governo Prodi o Berlusconi sia un attacco ad ogni singolo italiano, come dire che una critica al governo francese nelle vesti di Sarkozi sia diffamante per ongi singolo cittadino francese.

La cosa, semplicemente, non regge alla luce dei fatti (nonché al comune buon senso...).

Sott ha pubblicato un articolo che spiega in dettaglio tutte le fasi della vicenda. Sia il Quinn che la Delich sono intervenuti per ribadire la loro distanza dalle opinioni di David Duke. L'articolo fa anche il punto sull'accanimento dei media nel rigirare qualsiasi accusa ad 'Israele' come atto di antisemitismo.


Anti-semitism, British Academia and the Israel Lobby

Joe Quinn
Sott.net
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:04 EDT

Every year since 2002 the University and College Union (UCU), the largest trade union and professional association for academics working in further and higher education throughout the UK, has attempted to implement some form of boycott of Israeli academic institutions that have been shown to be complicit in the ongoing persecution of the Palestinian people. And each year, amid much acrimony and cries of "anti-semitism", boycotters meet with significant resistance from pro-Israeli members of British academia, and other institutions.

This year however, lowly Sott.net has inadvertently become involved in the melee.

In 2007, the congress of the UCU voted by 158 votes to 99 on Motion 30, which called for the UCU to circulate a boycott request by Palestinian trade unions to all branches for information and discussion. It called on lecturers to "consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions."

Motion 30 was amended:

Congress notes that Israel's 40-year occupation has seriously damaged the fabric of Palestinian society through annexation, illegal settlement, collective punishment and restriction of movement.

Congress deplores the denial of educational rights for Palestinians by invasions, closures, checkpoints, curfews, and shootings and arrests of teachers, lecturers and students.

Congress condemns the complicity of Israeli academia in the occupation, which has provoked a call from Palestinian trade unions for a comprehensive and consistent international boycott of all Israeli academic institutions.

Congress believes that in these circumstances passivity or neutrality is unacceptable and criticism of Israel cannot be construed as anti-semitic.

Congress instructs the NEC to:

circulate the full text of the Palestinian boycott call to all branches for information and discussion;

encourage members to consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions;

organise a UK-wide campus tour for Palestinian academic/educational trade unionists;

issue guidance to members on appropriate forms of action.

actively encourage and support branches to create direct links with Palestinian educational institutions and to help set up nationally sponsored programs for teacher exchanges, sabbatical placements, and research.

In the end however, and after much pressure being brought to bear, the boycott effort was dropped on legal advice that it would be unlawful and could not be implemented, despite the fact that the motion merely called for individual branches to inform their members and debate the pros and cons of a boycott and decide for themselves how or if to proceed.

In May this year, a similar motion was tabled and passed at the UCU annual conference that again called on members to: "consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating."

What this amounts to is basically a call for UCU members to just think about the implications of ties with Israeli academic institutions that are involved in supporting Israeli government oppression of Palestinians. Once again however, the pro-Israel camp came out in force.

The point of a boycott of Israeli academic institutions is eminently defensible because its primary goal is to put pressure on the Israeli government to cease its brutal treatment of the Palestinian people and to adhere to international law. It has absolutely nothing to do with any anti-semitism among the supporters of the boycott in British academia. Of course, this does not stop the anti-boycott pro-Israel camp from repeatedly using the slur of "anti-semite" in an effort to intimidate those calling for a boycott.

Since the beginning of the boycott movement, several anti-boycott websites have sprung up, the most prominent of which seems to be engageonline.org.uk, operated by David Hirsh, lecturer at University of London's Goldsmiths College.

Engage was:

"created to arm people with arguments and facts that they could use to counter the propaganda of the boycott campaign within the Association of University Teachers. Engage grew from a being a resource for that particular and successful campaign into being a resource that aims to help people counter the boycott Israel campaign in general, as well as the assumptions and misrepresentations that lie behind it.

That's the background, now comes the unsavory part.

For the past few months, debate for and against the boycott has been raging on a private UCU member email discussion list (about 700 members) with the majority of members coming out in favor of the boycott. A selection of these private email exchanges were leaked to the Engage website (many can be read here), but one in particular must have seemed like a godsend to the anti-boycott pro-Israel camp.

Three days ago, in her defense of a colleague who was arguing for the boycott on the private discussion list, UCU member and lecturer Jenna Delich wrote the following:

John,

In support to your link this may be a long but also an interesting reading:
http://www.davidduke.com/general/humanitarian-disaster_595.html
No comment necessary. The facts are speaking for themselves.

Jenna
Jenna Delich

The article that Ms. Delich referenced was written by me in 2006 and entitled "Racism, not Defence, at the heart of Israeli politics" (original here). However, the link was to the web site of infamous white supremacist David Duke. Someone at Duke's site (or Duke himself) had apparently republished the article, without my permission or knowledge.

Unsurprisingly, the anti-boycott camp immediately pounced and, ignoring the most obvious explanation (that Ms Denlich had never heard of Duke and was simply posting a link to the article and not his website) decried the "obvious link" between the UCU and "perhaps the most notorious racist and anti-semite in the world".

[Note: the second link above is from a blog called "Harry's place", which appears to be run by someone who is either a member of the UCU or is closely associated with someone who is. "Harry" claims that his site offers a "democratic-left perspective". To get an idea of what "democratic-left" means to 'Harry', see this link]

I can't speak for Ms. Delich (although I strongly suspect my hypothesis above is accurate), but all contributors toSott.net deplore racism and everything that Duke stands for. A careful reading of our published works makes our position on Israel, Judaism etc. very clear to any normal, rational person, and nowhere will you find the merest hint of any real anti-semitism, racism, holocaust denial, white supremacy, or KKK membership for that matter. In fact, Sott.net was founded on solidly humanitarian ground and in response to the increasingly extremist beliefs and policies infecting the halls of power and the minds of far too many otherwise well-meaning people.

It is natural therefore that we would seek to speak out against Israeli government and military human rights abuses against Palestinians, and that we would strongly support the UCU boycott of certain Israeli academic institutions as a way to put pressure on the Israeli government to change its ways.

The best known case of a similar international boycott occurred during the Apartheid regime in South Africa when dozens of nations around the world implemented various types of sanctions and boycotts (including academic boycotts) that played an important role in the ultimate fall of the unjust system.

So if a broad boycott of South Africa was almost universally agreed to be righteous, why does the mere proposal of a simple boycott of Israeli academic institutions meet with such resistance? After all, the similarities between the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians and South African Apartheid have already been made clear:

"This is like apartheid": ANC veterans visit the West Bank

Veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle said last night that the segregation endured by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories was in some respects worse than that imposed on the black majority under white rule in South Africa.

Members of a 23-strong human-rights team of prominent South Africans cited the impact of the Israeli military's separation barrier, checkpoints, the permit system for Palestinian travel, and the extent to which Palestinians are barred from using roads in the West Bank.

After a five-day visit to Israel and the Occupied Territories, some delegates expressed shock and dismay at conditions in the Israeli-controlled heart of Hebron. Uniquely among West Bank cities, 800 settlers now live there and segregation has seen the closure of nearly 3,000 Palestinian businesses and housing units. Palestinian cars (and in some sections pedestrians) are prohibited from using the once busy streets.

"Even with the system of permits, even with the limits of movement to South Africa, we never had as much restriction on movement as I see for the people here," said an ANC parliamentarian, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge of the West Bank. "There are areas in which people would live their whole lifetime without visiting because it's impossible." [...]

Fatima Hassan, a leading South African human rights lawyer, said: "The issue of separate roads, [different registration] of cars driven by different nationalities, the indignity of producing a permit any time a soldier asks for it, and of waiting in long queues in the boiling sun at checkpoints just to enter your own city, I think is worse than what we experienced during apartheid." She was speaking after the tour, which included a visit to the Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem and a meeting with Israel's Chief Justice, Dorit Beinisch.

One prominent member of the delegation, who declined to be named, said South Africa had been "much poorer" both during and after apartheid than the Palestinian territories. But he added: "The daily indignity to which the Palestinian population is subjected far outstrips the apartheid regime.And the effectiveness with which the bureaucracy implements the repressive measures far exceed that of the apartheid regime." [...]

In Hebron's main Shuhada Street, the South African delegation was plunged into a confrontation after one of the local settlers' leaders disrupted the tour by unleashing a barrage of abuse through a megaphone at one of the Israeli guides. Amid angry arguments, police arrested three of the Israeli guides.

Mrs Madlala Routledge exclaimed: "This is ridiculous. Why are they arresting our guides and leaving the man with the megaphone?"

Dennis Davis, a high court judge and one of the South African delegation's several Jewish members, told the extreme right-wing Hebron settlers' leader Baruch Marzel: "These provocations didn't come from us. I'm Jewish and I look at this and I say to myself, how can I feel fear from other Jews?"

Andrew Feinstein, a former ANC parliament member, said that the visit to Yad Vashem had been "extremely moving" because his mother had been a Holocaust survivor who lost many members of her family. "As you walk into Yad Vashem you see a quote that says in effect you should know a country not only by what it does but what it tolerates," he said. "So I found it very shocking to then come and here and see footage of teenagers heaping abuse on Palestinian children as they come out of school, and throwing stones at them. And that this should be done in the name of Judaism I find totally reprehensible.

"What the Holocaust teaches us more than anything else is that we must never turn our heads away in the face of injustice."

See also Gideon Levy's, Twilight Zone/'Worse than apartheid' in Haaretz

From the UK Guardian:

In October 2005, 13-year-old Iman al-Hams was shot and wounded by an Israeli army unit in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, despite being identified as a little girl, and wearing a school uniform. Iman was machine-gunned by the unit's commander. She had 17 bullets in her body, and three in her head, a Palestinian doctor told the Guardian. Iman is one of 654 Palestinian children to have been killed in the occupied territories since September 2000. Several were killed as they sat at their desks in class. Three and a half thousand children have been wounded. Over 300 are in Israeli prisons.

In South Africa's state of emergency of the mid-1980s, declared in response to a nationwide campaign of protest, 312 children were killed, over 1,000 wounded, 2,000 children under 16 were detained without trial, thousands more arrested, hundreds fled into exile, and a generation was marked for life. Noble Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu wrote about one child, Johnny, whom he saw after some time in police custody: "I wanted to cry, I was filled with a blazing anger against a system that could do this to a child ... Johnny's case alone ought to be enough to fill any decent person ... with revulsion and indignation."

Iman's is such a case, 20 years on. Archbishop Tutu has described the situation of the Palestinians under occupation as worse than South Africa under apartheid. In July 2004, the international court of justice ruled that Israel's 280 mile wall, the latest burden on Palestinians, was illegal. But Israel, like the old South Africa faced with international disapproval, simply ignored it.

Twenty years ago, 496 British academics responded to an appeal from the African National Congress leaders in exile after two academics were served with banning orders. They signed a letter calling for an academic boycott of South Africa. Today, some in the new generation of British academics feel they cannot accept Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, the policies that brought the wall, and a new generation of children suffering like those South African children whose wounds of mind and body never healed.

Iman and Johnny will never go to college. But some of the Israeli soldiers implicated in crimes like the one that killed the little girl are university lecturers who serve in the occupation army reserve forces every year, and who otherwise go about their academic "business as usual" for the rest of the year. No Israeli academic institution has ever severed its organic ties with the military-security establishment in protest. None has issued a public statement condemning the grave violations of Palestinian human rights. This is part of the reason why Palestinians have called upon the world to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

And that is precisely the goal of the repeated attempts by the UCU to institute an academic boycott (of some nature) against Israeli institutions - to make a public statement condemning the Israeli government for its human rights abuses. Yet somehow, the debate is always twisted and turned around to allegations of "anti-semitism" - that if you support the boycott you are somehow motivated by a 'hatred of Jews because they are Jews'. The contention is clearly ridiculous. Those supporting the boycott and the vast majority of those that condemn the situation in Palestine and Israel are well aware that the Israeli government and the Jews of Israel and elsewhere are far from synonymous. Events leading up the Iraqi invasion, when Tony Blair ignored the mass public demonstrations and not only joined the US-led invasion but fabricated evidence to justify it gave the British public a stark reminder of just how impotent they are to influence government policy on the most important matters.

In Israel the situation is no different. A majority of Israeli citizens want peace (who wouldn't?) but their government continues its aggressive policies towards Israel's Arab neighbors, placing the lives of Israelis at risk, and public opinion be damned. How then can the anti-boycott camp in the UK and elsewhere reasonably insist that exerting academic, political or economic pressure on the Israeli government is tantamount to hatred of Jews? Clearly the boycott seeks to achieve the very same thing that a majority of ordinary Jews (at least in Israel) want - an end to the violence and peaceful cohabitation. The answer of course is that they cannot 'reasonably' make such a claim, and there is nothing reasonable about the tactics they use to silence the boycott campaign.

Jenna Delich posted a link to my 2006 article. She was unaware that the link was not to the original Sott.net article but to a reproduction (now removed at my request) on David Duke's site. She sought to share the content of the article, notno way anti-semitic. My article draws conclusions that are backed by mainstream press reports (which I cite). My article attacks the Israeli government and its institutions and warns that (in my opinion) in the not too distant future the actions of the Israeli government may prove to be as much of a threat to the lives of Israeli Jews as they are now to the lives of Palestinians and Arabs in the Middle East. Clearly this is not anti-semitic. the content of the site on which it appeared. The content of my article is in

Is anything that I say in my article actually wrong? Not in my opinion. However, if someone at Engage or Harry's Place, can point out the errors, I will be happy to accept them and make the necessary corrections/retractions. But I seriously doubt that this will ever happen, because such people are not interested in reasoned argument backed up with objective facts. Writers at Harry's place continue to claim that my article is "racist diatribe" and that "Jews were the target", despite the fact that the word "Jew" or "Jews" or "Jewish" do not appear in the article. My article is clearly directed at the Israeli government and its institutions, yet the anti-boycotters are determined to convince everyone, me included, that I, and anyone who agrees with my points, are attacking the Jews! Well, I'm sorry but I'm not buying it, because it is unmitigated nonsense. I don't care how much they try to convince me that I hate Jews, I will always reject such a charge. Why would I hate people I don't even know? Why would I hate people I DO know and love? I have several close friends of Jewish background, people I consider brothers and sisters. Are the anti-boycotters saying that the fact that I wrote an article that was critical of the Israeli government, means that I now hate my close friends?!

Jenna Delich is clearly not a racist, she is moved by the plight of oppressed people everywhere. This much is clear from her messages to the UCU list and support for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. The anti-boycotters and Israel-firsters at sites like Harry's place are undoubtedly aware of this yet they choose to slander and defame Delich, casting her as a racist and "Neo-Nazi". They posted her picture on the Harry's place website and started a blog called the Jenna Delich archives at jennadelich.blogspot.com, which they state is:

"a repository of posts concerning the Sheffield-based UCU member who posts links to articles on the website of neo-Nazi and former Ku Klux Klan member, David Duke"

One mistake, one unintentional posting of a link to Duke's site, and Delich is now apparently someone who "posts links to articles on the website of neo-Nazi and former Ku Klux Klan member, David Duke." How's that for a smear job on an innocent woman? Do these seem like the actions of people who are interested in open and honest discourse on the plight of the Palestinian and Israeli people? Or are they the actions of people who, having no reasonable argument to put forth, resort to ad-homimen attacks and the blunt force instrument that is the cry of "anti-semitism". In doing so, are these people not in fact working against the expressed desire of the Israeli people for peace with their Palestinian and Arab neighbors? In thwarting the efforts to pressure the Israeli government to fulfill the wishes of the Israeli people for a peaceful settlement (which is being forestalled by continued Israeli oppression of Palestinians), how can these people claim to be defending Jewish interests? Clearly they are not, but they are certainly defending the interests of the corrupt Israeli government, in precisely the same way that the pro-war rantings of right-wing American 'patriots' defend only the interests of the corrupt Bush government and their lackeys.

If I criticize the US government (which I do, often) does that mean that I hate the American people? If I criticize the Irish government (which I do, often), does that mean that I hate the Irish people? Do I hate myself? Am I a 'self-hating Irishman'? Am I permitted to deny any association with, or that I am influenced by the real anti-semitism of the Nazi era on the basis that I was born many years later in a country many miles away with no exposure to anti-Jewish sentiment? If so, can I then claim immunity from the threat of being made guilty of anti-semitism by virtue of non-Jewishness and expect that my criticism of the Israeli government will be understood as just that - criticism is of the Israeli government - and not hatred of the disenfranchised Jewish people? Is it possible for a person to criticize or otherwise democratically agitate for the removal of a government without also wishing the demise of an entire population?

Is it possible that the vast majority of critics of the Israeli government are motivated by a sense of empathy with the suffering of the Palestinians, and outrage at the Israeli government as the source of that suffering, rather than a bizarre and unrelated hatred of Jews? And is it possible that those who refuse to accept this contention and instead condemn government critics as "anti-semites" do so because they themselves simply do not, or cannot feel such empathy for the oppressed? Is the problem here that we are essentially talking different 'languages'? If this is the case, and my own experience suggests that it is, then perhaps we should recognise it and 'draw the line'. Let the anti-boycott and pro-Israel camp continue to prevaricate and excuse the abuse of the innocent, and let the rest of continue to fight for justice.

Of course, that fight for justice will not be easy, mainly because of the biased nature of the mainstream media. Did I just say that?? Yes I did, in fact, I already said it my infamous article:

"Yet the Israeli government does a very good job of convincing the whole world that it is the victim in the conflict. How can this be? Israeli control of the press? Could that ubiquitous "conspiracy theory" actually be closer to a conspiracy fact? I don't really care, all I want is for someone to explain to me how, in a situation where there is massive evidence that 1.4 million completely isolated Palestinian civilians in the Gaza strip are being systematically murdered and starved by the state of Israel with its shiny 21st century military and all the tax dollars and support America can muster, somehow the entire world believes that those 1.4 million dispossessed are "evil terrorists" and "only have themselves to blame".

Somebody, please tell me how it comes to pass, if not by control of the mainstream press, and very significant control at that."

Now, are the above comments anti-Semitic? If they are backed up by mainstream sources that show a clear bias towards Israel in the mainstream press, are they still anti-Semitic? If a meticulously researched scholarly paper by two eminent U.S. professors provides ample evidence for the existence of a very powerful Israel lobby in the US and in other nations, is it anti-Semitic to infer that said lobby could exert control over mainstream press corporations that report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that said lobby could have some connection to the Israeli government?

Can someone please explain to me how, if I draw this conclusion, it is evidence that I 'hate Jews because they are Jews'. How does making logical and reasonable deductions from verifiable facts make me anti-semitic? Or perhaps I am anti-semitic because I am challenging the logic of those supporters of Israel that want to label me anti-semitic?

Since we are on the topic of the mainstream press, I should note that the fracas over Jenna Delich's posting of a link to my article was picked up by the Jerusalem Post:

UK union posts link to anti-Semitic article

August 26 2008
Jonny Paul, London

A member of the British academic union that voted to reintroduce a boycott of Israeli academia has posted a link on the union's Web site to an anti-Semitic article on the Web site of former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke.

Jenna Delich, a member of the University and College Union, posted a message on the UCU Web site's activist list with a link to the article.

Delich's message was in support of a colleague who backs the boycott call. It reads: "John, in support to your link this may be a long but also an interesting reading: www.davidduke.com/general/humanitarian-disaster-595.html. No comment necessary. The facts are speaking for themselves, Jenna."

Note the title of the piece. Mr. Paul is apparently in agreement with the anti-boycott camp in the UK that critcism of the Israeli government in order to pressure it to end the human rights abuses in Palestine is "anti-Semitic".

The article, "Racism, not Defense, at the Heart of Israeli Politics," is an attack on the "Israeli oligarchs" and was circulated to hundreds of the union's active members. It was written by a 9/11 conspiracy theorist named Joe Quinn.

"9/11 conspriacy theorist"? Well, ok, I can accept that. I am of the opinion that the 9/11 attacks involved a group of people conspiring together.

In the article he writes: "There is much evidence to warrant an in-depth investigation of the role played by agents of Israel in the 9/11 attacks. Yet the ubiquitous, tiresome and completely baseless threat of being labelled "anti-Semitic," for criticizing the actions of the Israeli government effectively prevents all but the most courageous from following the leads. Coincidence? We think not...

I am not entirely certain whether Mr. Paul quoted this paragraph because he agrees with me that to label those who criticise the Israeli government as "anti-Semitic" is a baseless accusation, or if he thinks this paragraph is evidence of my alleged hatred of Jews.

"Just what level of power do Israeli interests wield in the halls of power in the US that any investigation into Israeli spying activities on US soil against US intelligence agencies can be so completely quashed? Would this constitute a level of power and control that would allow those interests to carry off a terrorist attack like 9/11 and have it blamed on 'Arab terrorists?'"

Again, I am not sure why Mr Paul chose this paragraph. Maybe he thinks I have a point. Maybe he read Walt and Mearsheimer's The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, or maybe he read the Washington Post article of September 10th 2001 entitled, U.S. troops would enforce peace under Army study, and where it is stated:

Located at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., the School for Advanced Military Studies is both a training ground and a think tank for some of the Army's brightest officers. Officials say the Army chief of staff, and sometimes the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ask SAMS to develop contingency plans for future military operations. During the 1991 Persian Gulf war, SAMS personnel helped plan the coalition ground attack that avoided a strike up the middle of Iraqi positions and instead executed a "left hook" that routed the enemy in 100 hours.

The cover page for the recent SAMS project said it was done for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But Maj. Chris Garver, a Fort Leavenworth spokesman, said the study was not requested by Washington.

"This was just an academic exercise," said Maj. Garver. "They were trying to take a current situation and get some training out of it."

The exercise was done by 60 officers dubbed "Jedi Knights," as all second-year SAMS students are nicknamed.

The SAMS paper attempts to predict events in the first year of a peace-enforcement operation, and sees possible dangers for U.S. troops from both sides.

It calls Israel's armed forces a "500-pound gorilla in Israel. Well armed and trained. Operates in both Gaza [and the West Bank]. Known to disregard international law to accomplish mission. Very unlikely to fire on American forces. Fratricide a concern especially in air space management."

Of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, the SAMS officers say: "Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act."

Of course, if Mr Paul is aware of this report by the elite of US military intelligence, I hope that he would agree with me that the Mossad is an Israeli government institution, and any criticism of it does not imply a concomitant hatred of Jewish people.

Quinn links to the Web site of convicted Holocaust-denier David Irving saying: "On the morning of 9/11 and just as the WTC towers were crumbling, the five Israelis were caught doing the 'happy dance' as they videotaped the Twin Towers fall." The piece closes with the claim: "Either someone does something about these sick psychopaths, or they, and their kind in Washington and around the world, will destroy us all."

Now here is where Mr. Paul snuggles up close to the defamers at Engage and Harry's Place and at the same time engages in some real sloppy journalism. All Mr. Paul had to do was click on the link on Duke's website to see that there is not and never has been a link to Duke's website on my original Sott.net article (or anywhere else on Sott.net). It should not have been difficult therefore for Mr. Paul to deduce that Duke reproduced my article rather than me "linking" to his site. Furthermore, if Mr. Paul had indulged in some responsible journalism he could easily have contacted me to verify whether or not I had given permission for the article to be posted by Duke or if I even knew that he had done so (I did not). So for some reason, I am not shocked that the Jerusalem Post went for the easy option of a poorly researched hit piece that supports the dubious claim that anti-semitism is on the rise in British academia.

Paul continues:

The link was discovered by Engage, a group of left-wing trade unionists and academics active in the anti-boycott campaign.

Now, the idea that Engage is "left-wing" has me perplexed. I thought that left-wingers were traditionally anti-war, bleeding heart liberal, humanitarian types. Engage was established to opposed the boycott which puts it firmly in the pro-Israeli government camp, with all that entails. Unless of course by "left-wing" Engage means Tony Blair's 'New Labour' type of 'left-wingism', in which case I fully understand, but I'm going to have to redefine my political 'isms.

Dr. David Hirsh, lecturer at University of London's Goldsmiths College and editor of the Engage Web site, said: "Since 2003 academic unions have been dominated by a campaign to exclude Israelis, and nobody else, from UK campuses. We have warned the [UCU] general-secretary on numerous occasions that this campaign has imported anti-Semitic ways of thinking into our union, she either didn't understand or didn't care. That the union is now circulating racist material should be understood as a manifestation of its institutional anti-Semitism; it cannot be written off as yet another random accident."

It is again unsurprising that Mr. Paul chose to quote from the Engage web site and its owner (I presume) David Hirsh. It was Hirsh who first revealed Ms. Delich's message and kicked off the sweeping generalisations that "the UCU is circulating links to David Duke's website on behalf of Delich."

Hirsh said Delich's e-mails on the activist list had already been the subject of two formal complaints to the union. However, the UCU judged that the evidence was unpersuasive.

And why might the UCU have judged that the evidence was unpersuasive? Could it possibly be that the evidence for Ms. Delich's racism or anti-Semitism was unpersuasive?

Dr. Jon Pike, a member of the UCU national executive but speaking in a personal capacity, said: "I'm not surprised that anti-Semitic material has again dropped into my inbox from the union activists' list. What is shocking is the failure of the union's internal procedures to do anything about this. UCU prides itself on being an anti-racist union. In fact, it is probably the most complacent public institution in Britain in relation to increasing anti-Semitism and the leadership turns a blind eye, or worse, to the racism in the union. Behind all this is the campaign of discrimination against Israeli academics which is fostered by some in the union and encouraged by the leadership."

Eve Garrard, senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Keele University in Staffordshire, said: "This is precisely the kind of thing which drove me recently to resign from the UCU. It has become a union which is complacent about anti-Semitism: It regards prejudicial hostility toward Jews, from within the union itself, as something too unimportant for it to bother with. I didn't feel able to remain in an institution which treats anti-Semitism indulgently, as a special exception to a generally anti-racist stance."

Below is one email that Ms. Delich posted to the activist list in April this year. (emphasis mine):

Like quite a lot of others I feel tired from getting bulks of messages on an hourly basis with this endless discussion going on, and have very rarely felt the need to say something. However, I now feel that I might add a few words.

First, I find the whole talk about anti-semitism as an attempt to shift the focus from attacking the IDEA of Zionism and the Israeli politics inspired by it, and subsequent terror it has brought on the Palestinian people. Not all people (in this case Jews) buy into one and the same idea (as we know, it wasn't even the case in WWII). Therefore, I don't [think] we could comfortably say that Zionism=Judaism, and therefore, all Jews are Zionists. We know that it isn't either true or correct. So, I can't see how attacking an idea may equate to attacking an entire nation or one people. I personally would strongly oppose if a member of my people spoke on my behalf trying to represent me if I did not agree with him. Nobody could have a carte blanche to speak in the name and on behalf of the entire nation. Thus, I don't think that we can box all Jewish people in a package labelled Zionism, and therefore consider one's opposition to the idea of Zionism as an attack on the 'entire package'.

So, why not try to focus on the real essence of the entire discussion:

Zionism and the official politics of Israel, and its effects on innocent Palestinian civilians who have been denied the basic human rights as a result of such a politics?

As to the boycott, I simply see the point of the boycott and similar actions as a way of political pressure to try and change the official politics of one government. We are all familiar with sanctions and even bombing of parts of the world (e.g. Libya, Iraq) that were endorsed by the International community in order to remove oppressive regimes and a certain politics that had far more severe/devastating effects on the entire civilian population of those countries (children, women, elderly etc.) than a boycott would have on Israel.

But how do you change one politics if you do not put pressure on the people of that country to make them stand against their government? And are you (or anybody in their right mind) prepared to support building a College on settlements that were once legally the Palestinian land? Would you allow anyone to come and build a shed in your garden, driving you out of there (although it would be only a very tiny piece of land), and them pride myself in having the most beautiful shed in the neighbourhood expecting others to admire its beauty, and praise and applaud the perpetrator? And what would you think of those neighbours who would dare applaud someone invading you garden?

As to the bullying, I could never see a political discussion to be deemed as bullying. However, for those who claim this to have been so it would be interesting to invite them to state the exact quotes that they find to constitute bullying. I always believe that claims have to be substantiated by hard facts (what, where, when,and who).

Regards
JENNA DELICH

You can read a few more of the "racist" emails from Ms. Delich at this link (search for 'JENNA'). In all of them she comes across as a reasonable person who is motivated by the suffering of innocent people and anger at the Israeli government for meting it out. So where is the anti-semitism? Mr Hirsh explains:

"Anti-Semitism is routinely tolerated on the activist list when it is expressed in the language of hostility to Israel," Hirsh said. "Only a small group of Jews and anti-racists have been standing up against this culture on the list. Some have been excluded from the list on trumped up charges; others have been driven off the list by continual accusations of bad faith. Some have left the union because they cannot bear to pay their dues to what they consider to be an anti-Semitic organization."

So anti-semitism is "hostility to Israel". To be more specific, in the context of the debate within the UCU, for Mr Hirsh and the rest of the anti-boycott camp, "anti-semitism" is hostility to the Israeli government and it's policies towards Palestinians. This definition however diverges sharply from the working definition of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights which states:

"...criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-semitic."

The International Court of justice ruled in 2004 that the 'separation fence' is illegal, should be dismantled, and Palestinians should be compensated for damages. The Israeli government ignored the ruling and continued to build the wall, so the Israeli government is today in clear violation of international law and as a result is causing suffering to millions of people.

Would any other nation be criticized for similar flagrant disregard for international law and human rights? More importantly, has any other nation been criticized for similar flagrant disregard for international law and human rights? The answer is an emphatic 'yes'. Can we therefore criticize the Israeli government and bring pressure to bear on it by way of boycotts without being labeled anti-Semitic? The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights and therefore EU law says that we can. As such, for all those who abhor the Israeli government's continuing brutal treatment of defenseless Palestinians, understand that you are not only legally entitled to criticize the Israeli government, you are also morally bound to do so.

Comment: Update: Within a few hours of posting the link to the mailing list, Ms. Delich responded:

I didn't realise who David Duke was nor did I hear of him. I just looked at the article not the website where it appeared. Apologies for picking up that website as I personallly am strongly against any racists, anti-semitists and the likes of them. I just found the article quite powerful, and none are saying that Joe Quinn (the author of the article) is a racist or anti-semitist, and the article is quite interesting. So, perhaps we should focus on the article itself and not where it appeared (if we look at it in a broader sense, the website itself appeard on Google and so did the article)? Anyone can put anything on their website... Sincere apologies once again though for picking the wrong website, but it's the article that I found interesting as it gives some amazing facts and it was not written by David Duke (who, I most certainly agree, has no place in UCU but is the author of the website and not the article).

Mr Hirsh at Engage and all of the other "left-wing" anti-boycott, pro-Israeli government defamation artists were surely aware of Ms. Delich's response, yet they chose to pursue their opportunistic and scurrilous manipulation of Ms. Delich's simple mistake in their efforts to perpetuate the Israeli government's continued persecution of the Palestinian people.

By their fruits you shall know them.

The article that Ms. Delich referenced was written by me in 2006 and entitled "Racism, not Defence, at the heart of Israeli politics" (original here). However, the link was to the web site of infamous white supremacist David Duke. Someone at Duke's site (or Duke himself) had apparently republished the article, without my permission or knowledge.

Unsurprisingly, the anti-boycott camp immediately pounced and, ignoring the most obvious explanation (that Ms Denlich had never heard of Duke and was simply posting a link to the article and not his website) decried the "obvious link" between the UCU and "perhaps the most notorious racist and anti-semite in the world".