Hard News: Off the back of the deck
185 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 … 8 Newer→ Last
-
There is terrific Italian film of the last decade that I would urge people to see, Moretti's Dear Diary.
Oh, yes, that's lovely. I think I saw it at the Penthouse *sniff*. And had dinner afterward at the Brooklyn Cafe *sniffsniff*.
Excuse me while I go out in the snow and cry.
-
Plus: ridiculous hippies shagging uncomfortably in the desert and big explosions in Zabriskie Point! What's not to like?
Pantomime tennis! Pantomime tennis!
Excuse me while I go out in the snow and cry.
I have four words for you: John Key. Barack Obama.
Feel better now?
-
I have four words for you: John Key. Barack Obama.
Which reminds me: what's the best NZ channel for me to watch the inauguration on and weep buckets?
-
Of John Key?
-
Coronation , you mean..
-
It now occurs to me that I have spent a lot of time over the last year sitting in a dark room with Craig, all unawares. Weird.
In a non-creepy un-stalkerish kind of way, you forgot to add. :)
I have four words for you: John Key. Barack Obama.
Oh, get over it. Here's what makes me want to cry: That people who should know better actually think the choice of First Puppy or the presidential choice of PDA has any news value whatsoever. Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearings for a critical Cabinet position, not so much...
-
Coronation, you mean..
Nah, I think there's something splendidly democratic about making the President of the United States take the vow of office standing outside on a shitty winter morning. Then the fun really begins...
-
It's on Monday, right? Forget the BDO - there's some hellishly good music going to be played auguration-ally.
-
Forget the BDO
Sacrilege! I'm leaving for the hallowed ground in half an hour.
-
That people who should know better actually think the choice of First Puppy or the presidential choice of PDA has any news value whatsoever.
The Daily Show last week brought in Anderson Cooper and did a clip on 'The Race to the Doghouse', a debate involving dogs.
And then a great couple of clips on the media's obsession with where the Obama girls are going to school and what they're having for lunch. Ordinary Pupils and Sidwell Friends Quad.
The last one in particular is good - Daily Show Reporters go undercover at the school.
Daily Show, nailing it because the actual media suck :)
-
C4 streaming from BDO sideline (with Shavaughan talking way too much). I am not feeling remotely nostalgic or envious..
-
Israel is Immune From Criticism
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEYArticle two, Protocol III of the 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons states: "It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects, the object of attack by incendiary weapons."
Here is part of what is laid out in Protocol 1, Additional to the Geneva Conventions, 1977 . . . General Protection Against Effects of Hostilities: "Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate: An attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated."
-
Just watching Bush's farewell and wondering if everyone there had to check their shoes at the door. The man remains a delusional monster until the very end.
-
It has been a bit tragic with bush and his staff trying to build a legacy over the past six months. Well and truly in the running for worst president ever, and certainly worst president post WW2.
They released a list of "one hundred things that you might not have known about the Bush administration". Truly grasping at straws.
-
Israel is Immune From Criticism
Just not seeing it, Stephen. By the way, want to give us a rundown on the paragon of multicultural tolerance and diversity that is contemporary Japan since you're in the neightbourhood?
-
But to be fair to Stephen, it is enjoyable watching the increasing body of "I'm the sole speaker of truth to Israel" punditry. Do some of these people read anything that isn't under their own by-line?
-
contemporary Japan
Why, are they invading someone too?
-
what the fuck are you on about?
the Israeli racist death machine is using US-supplied weapons and diplomatic cover to commit disgusting war crimes at this very moment.
what the fuck has Japan got to do with it, apart from being a US sicophant?
piss off with your petty bullshit, please. -
Israel is Immune From Criticism
<quote>Israel, supported energetically by Washington (and using US-supplied aircraft, bombs and rockets), has caused "incidental loss of life" and general civilian casualties on an enormous scale. The Israeli military and the Israeli people knew full well that their genocidal attack on Gaza would kill civilians. The use of white phosphorous in built-up areas is worthy of the Nazis at their most brutal. Stalin and Mao would nod approvingly. It wasn't considered important that there would be countless civilian deaths. Nobody cares, and least of all American politicians. The next secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, refuses to comment on the atrocities. The incoming vice-president has been silent. President-elect Obama? As Reuters reported : "Obama . . . has not commented on the Middle East crisis since Israel launched attacks on Gaza nine days ago. His advisers insist that only President George W Bush can speak for America until then." But it was noted that "The president-elect has commented on the global economic crisis and his plans to try to pull the US economy out of recession."Of course he has. And were it not for the power of Israel in America he would no doubt comment adversely on the slaughter in Gaza, because he is a decent man.
But Mr Obama dare not criticize Israel, even for its use of chemical shells. Nor can any American who wishes to enter or remain engaged in politics. The kiss of political death in the United States of America is to censure Israel. It can't be done.
And that is why apartheid is permitted in Israel; it's why the mass-punishment blockade was enforced months before the attack went in; and it's why the near-genocide in Gaza is allowed to continue.
Does anyone remember the hearing on the so-called Israeli-Palestine peace process in the US House of Representatives in February 2007? Of course not. It was a farce. And why was it such a revolting and hideous charade? – Because it was a three card trick.
The main witness, of the three cards who were called, was one Martin Indyk, a former official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee which is the richest and most powerful lobby group in the country (two of whose members are currently under a mysteriously delayed investigation for spying for Israel). From there, inevitably, he went to be US ambassador in Tel Aviv. (And, incidentally, whose book on the Middle East was the subject of a glowing review in last week's Economist.) Another witness was David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (founded by Indyk; it's all very chummy in pro-Israel sewers), which is funded extensively by American interests that support Zionism. (Among other connections, it is closely associated with the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.) And was the third witness a counter-balance to two energetic supporters of Zion? Could he or she present a rather less biased view of the Middle East? Perhaps a person who would make the point that Israel has contemptuously ignored UN Security Council resolutions concerning illegal occupation of Palestinian lands?
Not a bit. The third member was a comic quasi-intellectual character called Daniel Pipes who once declared that Muslim immigrants to the US were "brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene." (Germanic? – How quaint.) Pipes founded the Middle East Forum (MEF) which encourages university students in America to report lecturers and professors who they consider to be anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian. (In Hitler's Germany there were awards given to young people who identified and reported those they thought to be pro-Jewish; I know a very elderly German lady who did this when she was 15. She is now terribly ashamed at the memory, because she actually informed on her own father. How times change. Or don't, of course.)
In 2006 Pipes was given the 'Guardian of Zion' award, an annual prize to a prominent supporter of Israel, by the Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
With a galaxy of partisan propagandists like Indyk, Makovsky and Pipes being the only people selected to give evidence on Israel-Palestine to the nation's legislators in Washington, there was no chance whatever that the Congressional Sub-Committee would be presented with a balanced view of the Israel-Palestine problem. The deck was stacked, and the legislators listened. They had no choice, because of the power of the Israel lobby. They've been shaken and baked.<quote>
-
I love the way your article is entitled "A Galaxy of Partisan Propagandists", stephen.
-
C4 streaming from BDO sideline (with Shavaughan talking way too much). I am not feeling remotely nostalgic or envious..
I would have loved to see My Morning Jacket, Sneaky Sound System, and of course the Wellington International Ukelele Orchestra. Oh, and Neil Young, of course.
-
Just not seeing it
just not seeing what?
so, having been not criticised by the US president, US congress, US president-elect, and meekly told its behaviour was unacceptable by the EU, UNSC, et al, has the racist state of Israel suddenly changed its behaviour and stopped murdering people?
How exactly is carrying on, killing as it pleases, showing that Israel is not immune from criticism?
-
A Galaxy of Partisan Propagandists
Stephen,
it must be Cockburn's way of summing up the US politico-media-think tank complex's subservience to the Israeli killing machine. -
stephen walker, I have read condemnation in strong terms from international leaders all over the world. I don't call that immune from criticism.
WRT to Cloughley's article, there are some specific things that I do find... overstated.
1. Repeated use of the word "genocide". The last count I saw from Palestinian source was 700 dead in the 20 days this conflict has been going. There are almost 500,000 residents of Gaza. If this is genocide, what word is left for killing everybody?
2. Pipes is a private citizen. (He's a kook like David Horowitz and shouldn't be advising anyone, but that's another story). His personal collection of reports of who is pro/anti Israel/Palesting is in no way comparable to informing in Nazi Germany, unless the professors so identified are detained, tortured and killed by the government. This is rhetorical bullshit designed to create parallels where none exist.
3. (You didn't quote this bit, I wonder why?) "this rabbi was British. Here we have a British citizen supporting hatred and bigotry on a BBC religious program. But of course he isn't really British. He is an Israeli religious propagandist of British citizenship whose main allegiance is to Israel. ... They unconditionally promote Tel Aviv's plans and policy and wield amazing influence over politicians and businesses." Well fuck, who can support Israel without being a traitor then? It's a conspiracy!
4. 'Additional to the Geneva Conventions, 1977 . . . General Protection Against Effects of Hostilities: "Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate: An attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated."'And that's why Hamas takes such pains only to aim rockets at military targets, and its suicide bombers never attack civilians.
--
If you're going sling around huge screeds from Counterpunch, I'm going to have to wade into the sewer and start quoting Ynet or MEMRI and then where will we be?
-
PS: if you're going to persist in "Israeli killing machine", how shall I refer to Hamas?
Post your response…
This topic is closed.