Israeli and Palestinian Authorities Now Seeking Peaceful Resolution?

I am almost reluctant to comment along the following lines, but so far as I can see both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities are at this point maneuvering within their respective political frameworks -- hopefully in directions that may converge in a peace settlement. It need not be pointed out that some in Hamas (the prisoners) are calling for a two state solution (revoking the Hamas charter commitment to destroy Israel) and the Israelis look to be on the verge of curbing their extremists (e.g. those settlers who seem to believe that Y-hw-h gave them the right to throw stones at Palestinian children). Needless to say there are still many hurt and embittered on both sides. But let us hope.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Official US relations with every Palestinian government ministry are now forbidden

US ending years of Gaza civic work
Official US relations with every Palestinian government ministry are
now forbidden. By Ilene R. Prusher
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0530/p01s02-wome.html?s=hns

.................................

I just don't see it. The urge to punish rather than to engage strikes me as the height of folly in relating to the Israeli/Palestinian need to face facts and reconcile themselves to each other. Needless to say each side distrusts the other and has much healing to accomplish. Undermining attacks simply exacerbate such situations. Any school yard graduate knows this. Growl! Ed Kent
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

The Quisling Factor ("Death to Karzai! Death to America!")?

Vidkun Quisling cooperated with the Nazis during the WW2 occupation in running his native Norway. He was subsequently executed and his name became synonymous with treason. Comparable figures similarly collaborated with the Nazis in a number of other occupied European countries -- and also earned the hatred of their fellow citizens:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quisling

The lesson to be learned here is that collaborators come to be despised by their own people and are associated with the worst wrongs done by their occupiers. One hears reports today that uproar is in process in Afghanistan where Karzai, our ally and designated leader there, is being targeted by Afghanis with outrage for his cooperation with us in the face of yet another killing incident:

http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/feeds/ap/2006/05/29/ap2778765.html

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B9E0FAF2-B4D3-4A69-93FA-749FAC6CC520.htm

One also wonders what will happen to the U.S. backed government in Iraq post Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo with the current disclosure of the apparently brutal November massacre of civilians there by frightened and frustrated American troops?

Iraqis' Accounts Link Marines to the Mass Killing of
Civilians
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and MONA MAHMOUD
The military's investigation into the role of U.S. marines
in the November killings may lead to charges including
murder.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/29/world/middleeast/29haditha.html?th&emc=th

..................

Most likely opponents to our occupations will link their own leaders cooperating with us to the worst happenings in those increasingly tormented nations. Needless to say politicians hoping to win the support of their people in the face of on-going occupation incidents will be walking a tight rope over an abyss -- the Quisling factor.

Machiavelli in The Prince warned long ago that occupying armies breed resistance -- insurgency or call it whatever one wishes.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Our American Fascists

TOP 10 SIGNS OF THE IMPENDING U.S. POLICE STATE
Allan Uthman, Buffalo Beast
From secret detention centers to warrantless wiretapping,
Bush and Co. give free rein to their totalitarian impulses.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/36553/

Those of us who lived through the horrors of WW2 and then watched the same as Stalin converted the Soviet Union into a gulag nation are horrified by the casual violations of basic rights and democratic standards by the Bush administration. It is difficult to determine whether there is an agenda in progress here or that they are too stupid to realize what they are doing. Yes, we had an horrendous gulag in Brooklyn of all places where Muslims were held incommunicado and tortured by the characters running it -- including one who went on to do the same at Abu Ghraib for which he was prosecuted! I don't see us quite at the totalitarian stage yet, but we have certainly crossed the line into well known fascist abuses. Ed Kent
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Southern Baptists to Crucify Jesus -- Again?

Not long after the Brown decision outlawed segregated public schools in 1954, the southern racists launched a campaign to set up segregated private schools to sabotage integration. Such an effort, if successful would, of course, have allowed the public school system to be resegegated by cuts in budgets, etc. Since that time various dodges of this kind have been tried to segregate our schools while at the same time tapping public funds to promote and sustain same, e.g. the school voucher movement, some charter schools as well as 'home' schooling.

It is extremely sad, therefore, to see the Southern Baptists at it again with this horrendous pretext -- their version of Jesus can only be taught in their private schools? What an obscenity so far as the real Jesus is concerned: "For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect" (Matthew 24:24). Why must each new generation set about recrucifying man of caring vision? Needless to say the anti-Christ lurks among such people. Shame!

What follow are the Southern Baptist Home Schooling resolution and an Encarta report on the comparable effort following Brown which was condemned by the courts. Wonder where the Bush court will go? Ed Kent

............................................

http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/hslda/200406/200406030.asp

Southern Baptist Christian Education Resolution

The Southern Baptist Convention is in the midst of a debate about the suitability of public schools for Christian children.

The Southern Baptist Annual Convention, which will be held this year in Indianapolis June 15-16th, votes on resolutions which reflects the opinion of the convention meeting for that year and are non-binding on the churches.

A pro-homeschool resolution has been submitted by T.C. Pinckney and Bruce N. Shortt to the Southern Baptist Convention Resolutions Committee. This committee decides what will be brought to the floor, but any messenger may request to bring a resolution to the floor for a vote.

Position:
HSLDA strongly supports this resolution.

Homeschooling is growing rapidly and successfully producing mature Christian citizens with a Biblical worldview. It's time for the wider Christian community to make the choice for homeschooling.

....................................

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761595158_8/African_American_History.html

XXII
The Brown Decision

During the 1940s and 1950s, NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall directed a carefully constructed legal campaign against Southern segregation laws. These laws separated blacks and whites in such areas of public life as schools, restaurants, drinking fountains, bus stations, and public transportation. The NAACP focused on segregation in education, and won a number of court victories, culminating in the Supreme Court's ruling in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. This ruling declared that separate facilities were inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional, thus reversing the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling.

However, President Dwight D. Eisenhower did not support a strong federal role in enforcing desegregation, an attitude that encouraged Southern resistance. State troopers were used in Texas to prevent integration; people who supported integration risked losing their jobs; and segregationists set off bombs in Tennessee and Alabama. In a 'Southern Manifesto,' 101 congressmen vowed to resist integration.

Meanwhile, after three years of negotiation, the black community and the school board in Little Rock, Arkansas, devised a plan to enroll nine black students at Central High School. When the plan was implemented in the fall of 1957, Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block the black students from entering the school. The public outcry forced Eisenhower to act. He put the National Guard under federal direction and sent federal troops to enforce the Brown decision and protect the students from white mobs. Nevertheless, the following year, Faubus closed all of Little Rock's high schools rather than integrate them. Ten years after the Brown decision, less than two percent of Southern black children attended integrated schools.

Whites in many areas of the South organized private white schools rather than accept integration. In 1959 officials in Prince Edward County, Virginia, moved white students and state education funds to hastily organized white private schools. For four years, until privately funded black schools could be organized, black students in the county had no schools. Finally in 1963 the county complied with court rulings and reopened the public schools. During the early 1960s, it was necessary to maintain federal troops and marshals on the University of Mississippi campus to ensure the right of a black student to attend classes.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

After the Occupation?

[Lest those with short memories forget, occupations not infrequently breed bitterly competing factions among those who have suffered occupation. This was true after WW2 of the French, the Norwegians, the Yugoslavs and others who variously had to resolve their factional differences before they -- for better or worse -- could begin to function as unified nations. One must not be surprised, therefore, that we are seeing the same sorting out process taking place now among the Palestinians (and Iraqis!). Hopefully they can get their act together so that they can begin to negotiate with the Israelis towards the aim of the newly created Israel/Palestinian list-- truth on both sides and reconciliation between two communities that have inflicted enough pain and suffering upon each other. The following piece is from today's LA Times.

I have added additional information links to the Israel/Palestinian website for those who wish to follow events there that are not necessarily covered in our U.S. Media -- 19 thus far:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine/links

Sorry, one must join the list, I find, to access the links.

Ed Kent]

Deadly Feud in Gaza Follows an Old Script

Battles between security forces linked to Hamas and Fatah reflect the deliberate dispersal of power by the late Palestinian chief Arafat.

By Laura King, Times Staff Writer
May 28, 2006

GAZA CITY — One day it's a gangland-style abduction, with the victims bundled into a car and then dumped by the roadside with bullet wounds. On another, an assassination attempt in a heavily fortified compound. On yet another, a drive-by shooting that leaves a bleeding man slumped over the wheel of his car.

When rival Palestinian forces face off in the Gaza Strip, as they have been doing in an escalating conflict that has left nearly a dozen fighters dead and scores injured this month, they are acting in accordance with a script of sorts — one written by none other than the late Yasser Arafat.

The Palestinian security apparatus, created a dozen years ago and now more than 70,000 fighters strong, was specifically designed as an array of competing militias, ensuring that no single commander would grow powerful enough to challenge Arafat. The Islamist group Hamas, though not part of the official Palestinian forces at that time, figured into the longtime leader's power equation as well.

Now, after Arafat's death and Hamas' rise to political power, chieftains aligned with the defeated Fatah faction, which Arafat once led, are scrambling to retain influence and control of their own bands of armed followers, even while taking on the fighters of Hamas.

"More and more, Gaza is ruled by warlords," said Eyad Sarraj, who heads a human rights group in the seaside territory where gunmen, in or out of uniform, can be seen on almost every street corner. "We are turning into a kind of Somalia. And this is Arafat's legacy."

In life, Arafat was able, though barely, to keep a lid on Palestinian infighting. He played one powerful lieutenant against another, cracked down hard on unruly factions and bought fealty with large and largely untraceable sums of cash.

But Arafat's moderate-minded successor, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, has neither the inclination nor the dictatorial powers to intimidate security chiefs into unquestioning loyalty. And with government salaries unpaid for more than two months, thousands of gunmen are ready to sell their services to whoever can offer them a paycheck.

"It would be incorrect to interpret the violent clashes between Fatah and Hamas militiamen as a precursor to civil war — it is a simple battle for survival," Israeli commentator Sever Plotzker wrote in the Yediot Aharonot daily newspaper. "The Fatah fighters … want to find their place in the new regime without losing their status, their privileges and their salaries."

A united Fatah army could easily dominate Hamas, but Fatah commanders have individual scores to settle with one another and don't always come to their comrades' aid in confrontations with Hamas.

During the early years of his rule, Arafat viewed Hamas as a powerful rival and subjected many of its members to jail terms or worse. But he also found the Islamist group a useful counterweight to his own restive commanders, especially in Gaza, Hamas' home turf.

Arafat was content to turn a blind eye as Hamas conducted a concerted campaign of suicide bombings against Israel during the Palestinians' current intifada, although eventually he became concerned about the extent to which such attacks were helping bolster the group's street following. Hamas halted its suicide bombings when it entered politics shortly after Arafat's death 18 months ago.

Within Hamas, many have vivid memories of a 1996 crackdown by Arafat. Hamas leaders, including Mahmoud Zahar, now the Palestinian Authority's foreign minister, often speak of the maltreatment suffered in Arafat's prisons, including the indignity of having beards shaved off — a grave affront to a devout Muslim.

"It's not that we want to do to them what they did to us 10 years ago," said Osama Museineh, a Hamas leader who is the son-in-law of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas spiritual leader who was assassinated by Israel in 2004. "But they fear that we do, and that influences their actions."

The current enmity between Hamas and Fatah has centered on a blood feud between the militant group and the Fatah-run Preventive Security Service, an intelligence branch that in the past played the role of Arafat's enforcer.

The Palestinian security forces, which at one point had nearly a dozen different branches, were a product of the Oslo interim peace accords of the early 1990s, envisioned as a way to provide jobs and perhaps impose a degree of discipline on tens of thousands of armed Fatah followers.

When the intifada broke out in the autumn of 2000, however, the line between Palestinian security forces and militant groups became blurry. Many gunmen collected a government salary even while they actively took part in attacks on Israel. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militia asserting loyalty to Fatah, has hundreds of former or current members of the security forces in its ranks, according to Israeli intelligence.

After Hamas won parliamentary elections in January and took power in March, Abbas sought to keep the Palestinian security forces under the control of his executive branch. But this month, in defiance of Abbas, the Hamas government fielded a 3,000-member paramilitary police force of its own, whose bearded fighters were initially deployed at almost every major intersection in Gaza City.

Last week, the Hamas militia engaged in a prolonged clash in the crowded center of the city with police loyal to Abbas, killing one bystander and sending students, shoppers and office workers fleeing. A few days later, Hamas pulled most of its force back to less visible positions but insisted the militia would not be dismantled.

In Gaza, the loyalty of many ordinary Palestinians lies with Hamas. And the creation of a Hamas police force has pointed up the fact that actual law enforcement was never much of a priority for Fatah during its years in power.

The watchful, disciplined demeanor of the Hamas men contrasted sharply with that of Fatah police officers, who can often be seen lounging, smoking and taking tea breaks. The Islamist group's image of fiscal incorruptibility, burnished by its years of running an extensive charity network, gave it greater credibility as a crime-fighting force.

"I support the existence of this [Hamas] force because they are the ones to protect our security and safety. No one else ever took a stand against lawlessness," said Samar Aldramly, a 24-year-old Gazan.

Some of the militias in Gaza are essentially criminal gangs that have taken on the political coloration of their commander. Illicit activity such as smuggling is one of the very few vibrant economic sectors in Gaza these days, and any such enterprise traditionally takes place under the protection, or with the active collusion, of Fatah-linked security forces.

Keeping any kind of order in Gaza seems an almost impossible task, given the sheer amount of weaponry concentrated in the small, crowded territory. And calls for calm from Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian Authority's Hamas prime minister, quickly gave way to relapses into retaliatory violence.

Abbas hopes to quell the internal strife by bringing Fatah and Hamas under a common political umbrella. Last week, he unveiled an initiative meant to induce Hamas to recognize Israel, a step that could bring about a restoration of international aid to the Palestinian government.

If Abbas' gambit is successful, a renewed flow of aid would allow the government to pay salaries again, including those of the security forces, which could help quiet the situation. But Hamas has signaled it will probably reject Abbas' initiative.

Even if there is reconciliation among Palestinian factions at an official level, on-the-ground feuds could still perpetuate themselves. Gunmen in Gaza generally affiliate with commanders and foot soldiers from their own clans. Thus, avenging a killing or abduction becomes a matter of family honor, which is of paramount importance in a highly traditional society such as Gaza's.

But the continued infighting is distressing to many Palestinians, whether they support Hamas or Fatah.

"I blame both sides," said Munzer abu Ramadan, a 46-year-old Gazan shopkeeper. "We are brothers and sisters who need to stand together. I want the language of our minds to win out over the language of weapons."
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Abbas Ultimatum on Peace [Aljazeera & Haaretz]

[If Abbas can unify the Palestinian position around the prisoners' plan (restoration of the '67 borders and a two state solution), a strong negotiating stance and arguments on its behalf would emerge. We shall see. Once again one hopes for the future -- truth and reconciliation are in the interests of all involved there -- and the rest of us also endangered by the ever lasting death dealing tit for tat contention there. Engaging Hamas in such a negotiating stance would vastly reduce the likelihood of violence from that quarter. Read and think about it. Ed Kent]

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/AEDC3E00-D356-4036-AA0A-31D97C51A4B9.htm

Abbas ultimatum on peace

Thursday 25 May 2006, 14:35 Makka Time, 11:35 GMT

Mahmoud Abbas greets delegates to the meeting

The Palestinian president has set a deadline for agreement on seeking a settlement with Israel - and will call a referendum if none is reached.

Mahmoud Abbas told delegates at a meeting attended by Hamas and his own Fatah movement on Tuesday that he would give them up to 10 days to reach agreement before calling for a popular vote.

Abbas said: "If you do not reach agreement by then, I would like to tell you frankly that I will put this document to a referendum. This is not a threat."

The plan was drawn up by members of both Fatah and Hamas who are jailed by Israel.

It calls for resistance to the continuing Israeli occupation, but allows for a negotiated settlement if Israel withdraws fully from West Bank land it has occupied since 1967. It would involve Israel removing all settlements from the West Bank.

It also calls for a unity government and for Jerusalem to be the capital of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Many Palestinian factions support the plan, but senior Hamas leaders have not yet signed up to it. Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, does not recognize Israel, which is implicit in the proposal being put forward.

National dialogue talks

Abbas gave his ultimatum at a two-day "national dialogue" meeting at which the rival Palestinian factions had pledged to set aside their differences.

The meeting followed weeks of tension between Hamas and the rival Fatah movement since Hamas took office in March. Before Hamas's rise, Fatah was the dominant Palestinian political force.

At the talks, Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister and Hamas leader, said: "Our meeting today aims to cement our national unity."

Members of the Fatah movement
militia take up positions

Haniyeh, who was prevented from addressing the delegates directly in Ramallah in the West Bank because of Israeli travel restrictions, spoke via a videolink from Gaza City.

"I assure our hero prisoners that we will not bring pain into your hearts by having a Palestinian-on-Palestinian struggle... Our difference is with the Israeli occupation and not with any of our brothers," he said.

A power struggle between Haniyeh and Abbas has led to gunfights between their factions in Gaza in the past week.

Haniyeh said: "We do not deny that there are differences but we have always stressed that these differences will only be resolved through continued dialogue and in accordance to the law."

Abbas, speaking in Ramallah, said: "We are here because we are at odds ... The danger has reached every house. Our national project is in severe danger.

"Why should we fight each other when we have ... a bigger and greater problem."

Before the meeting, officials in Ramallah said the focus would be on trying to get all sides to adopt a more "pragmatic" position, and said it would also study the financial constraints imposed by Israel and the West since Hamas came to power.

Compromises

While the dialogue marks an attempt to tackle the power struggle, few expected any breakthroughs.

Hamas officials say they fear the dialogue will be used by some factions to call on the government to step down for failing to run the Palestinian Authority effectively.

Khalil Abu Laila, a Hamas leader in Gaza, said: "If the aim of the dialogue is to show that the government has failed to carry out its duties and must accept a political formula that hints at compromises, then the dialogue will not succeed."

......................................

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/719390.html

Abbas: All factions agree on a Palestinian state on 1967 borders
By Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told a national conference of Palestinian leaders on Thursday that a national consensus exists on the borders of a future Palestinian state.

"All the Palestinians, from Hamas to the Communists, all of us agree we want a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders," he said. "This is what we have, we cannot talk about dreams."

Commenting on the backing the Palestinians would need for establishing their independent state, Abbas said The Arab countries are waiting for this realistic position, to work in harmony, to push the Palestinian cause ahead. They cannot do anything for the Palestinian cause if the [Palestinians] are rejecting everything,"

Referring to the growing rift between his Fatah party and the ruling Hamas, the PA's chairman said internal tensions were jeopardizing their people's aspirations.

"This crisis, everyone is feeling the danger," he said. "Our national plan is in jeopardy."

At the opening of a two-day dialogue between rival factions Fatah and Hamas, Palestinian Prime Minister and senior Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh also said the parties need to work out a joint Palestinian political platform.

Speaking via videoconferencing from Gaza City, Haniyeh told the delegates convening in Ramallah "the area of agreement in political vision is very close, but we need to strengthen our national unity."

"We affirm our position to unify our political vision, because it will give us the confidence of our people," he said.

Rival Palestinian movements began a two-day 'national dialogue' on Thursday, in an attempt to cobble together an understanding that will put an end to the violence in the Palestinian Authority.

"The national dialogue will focus on reaching a political agreement through adopting a pragmatic position so that there would be a basis for national unity," Yasser Abed Rabo, a senior official from the Fatah movement, said ahead of the meeting.

One initiative set for discussion in the two-day dialogue is a broad new proposal drawn up by various factions, including members of Fatah and Hamas who are imprisoned in Israeli jails.

The initiative urges peaceful resistance and a negotiated settlement if Israel withdraws to the borders that marked Palestinian territory before the 1967 Middle East war. That would involve Israel removing all settlements from the West Bank. Senior Hamas leaders have not signed up to the proposal.

Hamas officials say they fear the dialogue will be used by some factions to call on the government to step down for failing to run the Palestinian Authority effectively.

"If the aim of the dialogue is to show that the government has failed to carry out its duties and must accept a political formula that hints at compromises, then the dialogue will not succeed," said Khalil Abu Laila, a Hamas leader in Gaza.

Azzam al-Ahmad, leader of Fatah's parliamentary bloc, said agreement was unlikely.

"I don't expect practical results especially since Fatah and Hamas are wide apart politically. If Hamas insists on its rigid stances, and pursues policies to monopolize power, the crisis will increase," he said.

Report: Parties reach understandings ahead of talks
Ahead of the talks, Palestinian sources said on Thursday that Fatah and Hamas leaders have reached understandings in relation to the division of power in the government administration and about talks with Israel, Israel Radio reported.

According to the radio, the London-based Al Hayat al Jadida daily newspaper reported that Hamas agreed for Abbas to hold negotiations with Israel based on the position of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Any agreement Abbas reaches with Israel, however, would have to be approved in a referendum, according to the report.

Hamas and Fatah also agreed that the responsibility over the PA's financial administration would be handed over to Abbas, in order to allow the international community to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.

The United States and the European Union have stopped to channel humanitarian aid to the Palestinians for fear of the funds being used by Hamas for terror activities.

These understandings are expected to be presented in Thursday's meeting, the radio said.

The radio also reported that senior PA official Mohammed Dahlan told Monte Carlo Radio that Fatah would not object to join a unity government with Hamas. Fatah's condition for joining a Hamas-led government would be for the group to agree to the Arab League peace initiative as a platform for negotiations with Israel.

Representatives of the sides are to meet simultaneously at the Muqata in Ramallah and in Gaza. Palestinian sources said the gaps between the two sides were significant, both in terms of political principles and the sharing of authority in the PA. Representatives are expected to discuss the document of national reconciliation drafted by members of the organizations in Israeli jails.

More casualties despite impending talks

Despite the impending talks, clashes continued Wednesday, resulting in the death of a Hamas activist and senior officer in the PA Preventive Security Service in Gaza. Four more Hamas members were wounded.

The Preventive Security officer who was killed Wednesday was identified as Nabil Hodhod, who was commander of the force in central Gaza. He was killed by a car bomb. No organization took responsibility for the blast, which seriously wounded another man who was with Hodhod.

In the town of Absan, east of Khan Yunis, Hamas activist Salem Kadikh, 24, was shot to death by Fatah activists. In another incident, four Hamas members were abducted and later released after having been shot in the legs. In the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, a bomb was found next to the house of a Hamas activist.

Fatah stages loyalty march

Meanwhile, about 1,500 armed activists identifying themselves as members of Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, marched through the streets of Gaza City to show their "loyalty" to the Hamas government. The marchers held Korans and wore headbands with the Fatah flag.

The demonstrations were organized by Khaled Abu Halal, spokesman for Hamas Interior Minister Saeed Seyam. Abu Halal was a former activist of the Brigades and their main spokesman in Gaza who, together with a number of armed groups from Fatah, crossed the lines to Hamas in a calculated political move following the establishment of the Hamas government.

Spokesmen for Fatah in the Gaza Strip called the demonstration "a hired protest" that did not express the positions of Fatah.

Seyam, who was on his way at the beginning of the week to Damascus via Egypt, was detained by Egyptian officials, according to a report Wednesday in the London-based Arab-language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

According to the paper, Seyam, who had coordinated his passage through Egypt with the Egyptian authorities and the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo, was humiliated and detained a number of times, first on the Egyptian side of the border at Rafah, where he was questioned by security officials.

The taxi he was riding in to Cairo was then detained again at roadblocks, where he was asked repeatedly what his business was in Cairo. The report said that when Seyam reached Cairo, the Egyptian authorities at the airport attempted to prevent two of his aides from boarding the plane with him to Damascus.

Meanwhile, the Hamas-led Palestinian government and Abbas's rival Fatah faction said on Wednesday they had agreed to rein in supporters whose armed clashes have stirred fears of civil war.

"The two groups urge their members, grassroots supporters and sympathizers to implement the agreement," Abbas loyalist Samir al-Mashhrawi told reporters following the 6-hour talks attended by Haniyeh.

Mashhrawi said the factions would not harbor nor protect anyone violating the agreement.

Clashes between Hamas and Fatah have become more frequent since the Islamist-led government deployed a new, 3,000-member paramilitary unit last week. Gunmen killed one Hamas member and wounded four others in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

Abbas has called for the Hamas-led unit to be disbanded. But Haniyeh said he saw progress in a proposal to incorporate it into the Palestinian Authority's regular police forces.

"I will follow this issue in order to complete the legal procedures to integrate the force in the Palestinian police apparatus," Haniyeh said.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Laid Off and Left Out

[As little as two decades ago American workers were appreciated for their loyalty to their companies and rewarded accordingly with employment through retirement, assured pensions, etc. I began to notice around then the peculiar phenomenon of people losing their employment at precisely the critical time many had maximum expenses (e.g. children in college). We had a series of managers at our local banks who found themselves being handed silver parachutes and dumped into early retirement. This happened directly or through the effects of bank mergers. Only most recently has it become apparent that CEOs can benefit through stock options that increase in value by such moves as laying off employees, replacing older ones with beginners. These trick or treats need not benefit the companies involved -- only move stocks upwards for a sufficient period of time for speculators (or option holders) to make it big. Now we have fewer and bigger banks in our 'hood. And so it goes in AmeriKKKa. Ed Kent]

Op-Ed Columnist NY Times
Laid Off and Left Out

By BOB HERBERT
Published: May 25, 2006

You don't hear much from the American worker anymore. Like battered soldiers at the end of a lost war, ordinary workers seem resigned to their diminished status.

The grim terms imposed on them include wage stagnation, the widespread confiscation of benefits (including pensions they once believed were guaranteed), and a permanent state of employment insecurity.

For an unnecessarily large number of Americans, the workplace has become a hub of anxiety and fear, an essential but capricious environment in which you might be shown the door at any moment.

In his new book, "The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences," Louis Uchitelle tells us that since 1984, when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics started monitoring "worker displacement," at least 30 million full-time workers have been "permanently separated from their jobs and their paychecks against their wishes."

Mr. Uchitelle writes on economic issues for The Times. In his book, he traces the evolution of that increasingly endangered species, the secure job, and the effect that the current culture of corporate layoffs is having on ordinary men and women.

He said he was surprised, as he did the reporting for the book, by the extensive emotional fallout that accompanies layoffs. "There's a lot of mental health damage," he said. "The act of being laid off is such a blow to the self-esteem. Layoffs are a national phenomenon, a societal problem — but the laid-off workers blame themselves."

In addition to being financially strapped, laid-off workers and their families are often emotionally strapped as well. Common problems include depression, domestic strife and divorce.

Mr. Uchitelle's thesis is that corporate layoffs have been carried much too far, that they have gone beyond a legitimate and necessary response to a changing economy.

"What started as a necessary response to the intrusion of foreign manufacturers into the American marketplace got out of hand," he writes. "By the late 1990's, getting rid of workers had become normal practice, ingrained behavior, just as job security had been 25 years earlier."

In many cases, a thousand workers were fired when 500 might have been sufficient, or 10,000 were let go when 5,000 would have been enough. We pay a price for these excesses. The losses that accrue to companies and communities when many years of improving skills and valuable experience are casually and unnecessarily tossed on a scrap heap are incalculable.

"The majority of the people who are laid off," said Mr. Uchitelle, "end up in jobs that pay significantly less than they earned before, or they drop out altogether."

At the heart of the layoff phenomenon is the myth, endlessly repeated by corporate leaders and politicians of both parties, that workers who are thrown out of their jobs can save themselves, can latch onto spiffy new jobs by becoming better educated and acquiring new skills.

"Education and training create the jobs, according to this way of thinking," writes Mr. Uchitelle. "Or, put another way, a job materializes for every trained or educated worker, a job commensurate with his or her skills, for which he or she is appropriately paid."

That is just not so, and the corporate and political elite need to stop feeding that bogus line to the public.

There is no doubt that the better-educated and better-trained get better jobs. But the reality is that there are not enough good jobs currently available to meet the demand of college-educated and well-trained workers in the United States, which is why so many are working in jobs for which they are overqualified.

A chapter in "The Disposable American" details the plight of exquisitely trained airline mechanics who found themselves laid off from jobs that had paid up to $31 an hour. Mr. Uchitelle writes: "Not enough jobs exist at $31 an hour — or at $16 an hour, for that matter — to meet the demand for them. Jobs just don't materialize at cost-conscious companies to absorb all the qualified people who want them."

The most provocative question raised by Mr. Uchitelle is whether the private sector is capable of generating enough good jobs at good pay to meet the demand of everyone who is qualified and wants to work.

If it cannot (and so far it has not), then what? If education and training are not the building blocks to solid employment, what is? These are public policy questions of the highest importance, and so far they are being ignored.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

The Gods Go to War -- Again?

In the ancient world the gods were thought to lead their warring human troops into battle and the defeat of a nation (tribe) was viewed either as the defeat of its patron god or goddess -- or punishment for crimes of a people whose god(s) had abandoned them at a critical moment, perhaps as punishment for their moral wrong doing (See various Hebrew prophets on this latter subject).

Thus, one of the reasons to view our modern religions with concern is that they, too, are being used to justify wars against THEM. In Sri Lanka (once Ceylon off the east coast of India) the Hindu Tamils do battle with the Buddhist Sri Lankan majority. I recall a human rights conference some years ago where representatives of each scowled at their 'enemies' across the conference table. We outsiders could not grasp why intelligent people with so many interests in common could be engaged in brutal warfare against each other? Perhaps the madness with which the gods afflict their adherents?

Needless to say Christians and Jews now seem to be moving into increasing confrontation with Muslims in the Middle East -- Yahweh and Jehovah (the misconstruing of the Hebrew vowels by the King James translators in the 17th century) taking on Allah? Note the citations of ancient religious authorities used to justify brutal cruelties -- the "collateral" deaths and woundings of the innocent -- whether rockets from on high or bombs below. What sort of gods are these -- perhaps the ancient Babylonian ones in disguise who held humans in contempt and tormented them for their godly entertainment? Enlil (desert) storms again?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_and_Assyrian_religion

Note how the "axis of evil" mentality fits this framework. What goes around comes around? Iraq and Afghanistan destroyed -- now on to demonize Iran and the Iranians?

May the most powerful god win. However, such warfare may ultimately prove deadly for us mere humans in this era of WMD!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

How the Bush Administration Is Blowing It in Iraq and Elsewhere

LAW AND DISORDER
Misjudgments Marred U.S. Plans for Iraqi Police
By MICHAEL MOSS and DAVID ROHDE
The Iraqi police are a battered and dysfunctional force
that has helped bring the country to the brink of civil war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/world/middleeast/21security.html?th&emc=th

.....................................

What a mess the Bush administration has created in Iraq! Needless to say we have been constantly lied to about the state of disorder in Iraq by Rumsfeld since he initially reported that the chaos of looting immediately after our troops arrived at Baghdad was a not to worry item.

Manifestly Bush has not a clue about how foreign affairs should be run -- it is not a frat boy system out there. And Rice running around like the energizer bunny is not going to solve much in the way either of restoring respect for the U.S. now seen as the torturer nation, nor is it going to bring order out of the chaos that has been created in Iraq.

How ironic that Hugo and Muammar have now become good friends -- ready to corner the oil markets between them.

Personally, with a potential economic crash in our near future, I have never seen the U.S. so badly managed as by its current CEO and Co. Says something perhaps about the incompetence of current corporate America?

Help!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Implications of the Da Vinci Code

What one discovers if one studies the origins of the Christian Gospels is that they were put on parchment long after the events that they report. Given the diverse orientations -- and differences between the 4 versions -- it becomes manifestly clear that what was being reported were the oral traditions and memories of largely humble folk who found in Jesus of Nazareth their savior. The shaping of the Gospels also reveals that they had been tailored to match previous authoritative texts. Mark is generally considered to be the most primitive of the four. Matthew is manifestly directed to Hebrew audiences. Luke is elaborated to match the experiences of Jesus to his predecessor, Moses-- and uniquely gives us the lovely Xmas tale. John is a mystical take off directed to Hellenes. There is only one external reference to Jesus in Roman literature -- a brief report that a revolutionary type was executed by a Roman governor in Palestine.

St. Paul's letters -- he never met Jesus and started his career as a persecutor of Christians -- were written down a generation or so prior to the Gospels and twist the message of peace in them into a hate list of enemies -- Jews, gays, women whom he feared and denigrated, and synchophantic obedience to Roman authority. He also eschews life in this world on the assumption that it is about to be destroyed by the imminent return of the Messiah.

The Da Vinci Code is just another of the many interpretations of events about which we have virtually no solid factual information. It is one of a long series of reinterpretations. Another is the Book of Moroni, allegedly dug up on Gold tablets in the U.S., but in fact based on a penny dreadful novel of the early 19th century -- it became the official revised version of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons).

Current contemporary religious scholars sotto voce report on other alternative Gospels, e.g. the Gnostic one:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/gnostics.html

Summarily, the Christian church as if evolved had many possible story versions of things from which to choose. Various church councils authenticated what they wanted to amongst the alternatives.

One of the major efforts, thus, during the early decades of the 20th century was to winnow out the 'real' Jesus from all the variant accounts. Many a scholar wrote a 'Life of Jesus'. One of them happened to be my grandfather, who was our leading American Biblical Scholar during that period and a great liberal who opened the then closed U. S. doors to minorities for advanced religious studies -- Jews, African Americans, Catholics -- in his capacity as Woolsey Professor of Biblical Studies at Yale and founder of what was first called the National Council on Religion in Higher Education:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Foster_Kent

As such was in my family heritage, I took 3 years to study theology in this country and at Oxford which exposed me to the 'greatest story ever told' and also made me aware that it was a story -- what so often catches the human imagination and motivates us.

And so the recent films on the life of Jesus are but two more in a long train of those started with the now official texts. Not bad stories, but sometimes subject to evil abuses by knaves and thieves. By their acts you shall judge them -- the false prophets.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

British Academic Boycott of Israel

[I pass this posting along not because I support boycotts of Israel. My own sense is that outreach is the right way to go, as Israelis tend to discount boycotts as expressions of anti-Semitism. However, I think it is important for American academics to realize that their British counterparts are far more publicly critical of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and also that there is a good deal of suppressed criticism of it here in the U.S., too. I started this group which I use as a posting point for far wider distribution by bcc of information directed as its description suggests:

"This group will work towards achieving peace in Israel/Palestine through candid sharing of information and concerns by Israelis, Palestinians, and others who hope to achieve truth and reconciliation there."

I am convinced that those of us on the outside must do what we can to help the Israelis and Palestinians live together one way or another in peace!

I would add this group's website to the others that I have located with at the list site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
but it is in Hebrew which I cannot read and, thus, check out and which also does not carry with my computer system. Others may want to look at it: <http://www.newprofile.org>

This posting was sent on to me from Israel by Dorothy Naor, who works for truth and reconciliation there. Ed Kent]


Ha'aretz Update Thursday, May 18, 2006



Last update - 21:37 18/05/2006


British professor refuses request to write article for Israeli journal


<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/717551.html>
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/717551.html



Hebrew:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/717544.html



By Tamara Traubmann, Haaretz Correspondent


A British professor has refused a request to write an article for an
academic journal funded by Israeli universities.

Professor Richard Seaford, from the University of Exeter in England,
refused to write the article, saying he was taking part in the academic
boycott of Israel.

"Alas, I am unable to accept your kind invitation, for reasons that you
may not like. I have, along with many other British academics, signed
the academic boycott of Israel, in the face of the brutal and illegal
expansionism and the slow-motion ethnic cleansing being practiced by
your government," Seaford wrote to Dr. Daniella Dueck. Dueck, a lecturer
at Bar Ilan University and a member of the Scripta Classica Israelica
editorial board had requested that Seaford write a book review for the
journal.

Scripta Classica Israelica is published by the Israeli Society for the
Promotion of Classical Studies and is distributed to subscribers in
Israel and abroad.

Seaford, the head of the Department of Classics and Ancient History at
Exeter University, told Haaretz that the academic boycott "is just a
small contribution to the long-term raising of international
consciousness which represents the only hope for an eventual just peace
in the Middle East. In this respect, there is a parallel with the
academic boycott of Apartheid South Africa."

When asked why boycotts specifically target academics, Seaford said,
"Though many charges of racism have been directed against Israeli
universities, we do not want academics of all people to be boycotted: We
would be delighted if there were other boycotts."

On May 27-29, the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher
Education (NATFHE) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will debate a
proposal in favor of an academic boycott against Israel.

The International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom (IAB), established
at Bar Ilan University to take action against academic boycotts,
published a statement Thursday in which it "warns that a silent boycott
between British and Israeli academics is already taking place," and
called on an anti-boycott network of some 500 academics around the world
to oppose it.

In March, the London Jewish Chronicle reported that U.K. magazine Dance
Europe refused to publish an article on Sally Ann Freeland, an Israeli
choreographer, and her dance company. The magazine conditioned the
publication of the article on an explicit declaration by Freeland
against the occupation, which she refused to make.

The academic boycott began in the United States and Europe during the
first intifada, and intensified in 2002 after Operation Defensive
Shield, during which Israel Defense Forces troops occupied West Bank
cities.

The boycott movement began in response to a request by Palestinian
organizations, such as The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and
Cultural Boycott of Israel, an umbrella organization for dozens of
Palestinian NGOs.

An attempt is made almost annually in the U.K. to formally instate an
academic boycott on Israel, through official decisions by lecturers'
unions.

The proposal slated to be discussed later this month by NATFHE differs
from previous ones. According to the proposal, the current boycott will
deal not only with the occupation, but also with discrimination against
different populations in Israel, mainly in the field of education.

The proposal encourages academics to "consider the appropriateness of a
boycott of those that do not publicly dissociate themselves" from
discriminatory and unequal policies.

According to the IBA, "Such boycotts have no place in the academic
community. Scholarship and research, and their expression in the open
and free exchange of ideas, are among the foundations of civilization,
and without them there can be no true advancement of human knowledge."

------------------------

New Profile Movement for the Civil-ization of Israeli Society
www.newprofile.org

to subscribe to our email list send email to
newprofile-subscribe@googlegroups.com



--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Another Neocon Big Lie -- International Criminal Court Veto

http://www.state.gov/t/us/rm/25818.htm

Those of us working in the domain of human rights were dismayed and puzzled by the Bush administration's adamant refusal to permit the U.S. to join the International Criminal Court back before it launched its assault on Iraq -- and moreover its threats to others who had the temerity to join it themselves. Their ostensive reasons were totally false, namely that our military and other personnel might be placed at risk by some terrorist organization that took upon itself to prosecute alleged American criminals. Such could not have happened for two obvious reasons:

1) the Court can only prosecute wrong doers when a nation has refused to do so itself: http://www.icc-cpi.int/home.html

2) no nation was likely to balk the one and only superpower by insisting on unilateral trials of its citizens.

What is now manifest is that at the very time John Bolton, our present UN representative, was making his pitch against the ICC to the Heritage Foundation (See first website above), Bush, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez (now U.S. Attorney General, then White House Counsel recommending torture as an ok practice) were plotting violations of international law -- including torture (Abu Ghraib), extraordinary rendition, holding people indefinitely without charges (Guantanamo) et al.

All of these and undoubtedly others deserve indictment and prosecution for crimes against humanity -- and will be so judged by history, if not during their current terms of office.

The crows are coming home to roost:

U.S. Should Close Prison in Cuba, U.N. Panel Says
By TIM GOLDEN
The panel's criticism came as military officials at
Guantánamo disclosed the most serious disturbances by
prisoners there since the camp opened.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/20/world/americas/20torture.html?th&emc=th

..................

Murtha report on U.S. Troop Slaughter in Iraq:

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/05/now-murtha-blames-marines-for-mass.html
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Killing Jesus Again

In his new book <http://lists.thenation.com/t?ctl=4092:5447F> , The
Hijacking of Jesus, Wakefield turns his sharp analytic eye on the
religious right. Through careful research and interviews with religious
leaders across the country, Wakefield has developed a unique
understanding of the rise of this new political juggernaut and
thoughtful insights into what can be done about it.

...............................

I have to agree fully with this assessment of the obscene defilement of Christianity by the religious right in this country. I am not a believer now. However, on the basis that my grandfather had been the leading U.S. Biblical Theologian of his era and that I had been shaped in my own values by a number of his students (I had been born after his relatively early death), I studied theology for 3 years in this country (Union Theological Seminary) and Oxford with some of the leading Protestant theologians of that day, e.g. Reinhold Niebuhr for whom I wrote one of those all nighters.

Needless to say, so far as we can know him through the veil of oral accounts only written out decades after his death with obvious elaborations debunked by the demythologization efforts last century, Jesus of Nazareth was most likely both a genius and an extraordinarily compassionate man living in brutal times (the Roman Empire on the march) which led to his execution as a suspect terrorist ("zealot") of his times for his defenses of those in need -- the poor. Needless to say one of his sayings was that it would easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle (perhaps a narrow gate in Jerusalem) than for a rich man to get into heaven.

What we see in the current Republican Party is an unholy alliance between such rich men (the tax cuts for them) and the haters of the religious right -- anti-Semitic, anti-gay, racist, anti-women (abortion rights, poverty, etc.) and marching (others) off to war. I suspect that the American public is waking up and that there are not so many of these perverters of Christianity as they claim to be. Note who associates with them among the pols from now on.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Unstable Situation in Israel/Palestine -- Karni Crossing Opened and Closed

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A5121295-C95D-40A3-98BD-39A195CF1C7A.htm

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/717529.html

As the above postings respectively from today's Aljazeera and Haaretz indicate, the situation in Israel/Palestine is both unstable and rapidly shifting. Karni crossing to Gaza is essential for the export and import of foods. The threat of terror is again apparently trumping the basic interests of the peoples there. One can only hope that the Palestinians can stabilize their security situation in the interests of all.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

FBI Seeking Phone Records of Reporters?

http://lists.thenation.com/t?ctl=3F5C:5447F

As one wonders whether the Bush administration is setting up a hate list comparable to Nixon's of those who oppose its violations and our media for the most part screen out negative messages along these lines from our daily life, are we now watching a further attack on our reporters in addition to the corporate threats to their jobs?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

U.S. Student Debt Monster!

For graduates, student loans turn into an albatross
With tuition and interest rates rising, debts may turn some away from
low-paying jobs like teaching. By Chris Gaylord
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0517/p01s02-usec.html?s=hns

..............................

Anyone who has put students through college or has been a student in recent years knows that it is almost impossible for even relatively well off people to make it without accumulating massive debts. Needless to say such burden grads and others starting their careers at precisely the most difficult times as they are beginning families, trying to find decent housing, meeting medical expenses and all the rest.

The bottom line here is that it is virtually impossible with such debt loads to take on service jobs that do not pay huge amounts. Perhaps the double income of married couples helps, but I am not sure how much with the additional strain of starting families which generally means extra expenses in child care if two are working.

For the record, perhaps fewer of us could afford advanced studies in my day, but we certainly did not end our undergraduate years -- even on full scholarships -- with debts. Generally we could break more or less even. I suspect our academic institutions are putting more monies now into building programs, massive salaries for the corporate executives. I notice that New Jersey is now questioning the state university presidents' take there -- $300,000 plus presumably perks as well?

What I smell here as a legal philosopher with a specialization in property theory is a vast shift in the allocation of burdens upon students and their families. This does not bode well for our service areas -- or even maintaining the flow of talented people into particularly teaching careers, let along lower paid ones.

In addition extra burdens are being dumped on these same people. The U.S. is the only democracy among 28 comparable ones not to have single payer medical coverage. This is but one of the several additional hidden costs that are burdening our students as they try to start careers. Monies are being allocated rather to the ever more wealthy who are making theirs from stocks and real estate investments -- and the "death tax" -- if abolished would free those leaving more that $4 million to their heirs from recycling their ever larger fortunes.

One does not have to be a Marxist to see that we are reaching a stage where we may see the beginnings of an economic revolt -- even with our media increasingly dominated by the wealthy and the spins of the Richard Mellon Scaifes -- inheritors of vast fortunes -- who fund the right wing think tanks that plot such a growing discrepancy between poverty and wealth in AmeriKKKa. Growl!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

U.S. -- Ex-con Nation?

http://www.prisons.net/

On hears the figure that approximately 600,000 felons will be dumped on our streets this year. Imagine that one has spent 15 years in one of NY's 33 new upstate prisons following upon a mandatory Rockefeller drug sentence. One is dumped onto the streets with new jeans and T-shirt, a Metro card with two rides, and enough money to buy a couple of meals -- but not to afford a place to spend a night in NYC. Lucky you are if there are still friends or family to take you in. If you happen to be African American, you will find yourself competing with the 50% of young African American men here who are unemployed. Fat chance as a felon -- which you must fill in on any job application -- to find a job, let alone a place to spend a night. So it is out on the street with your hand out -- or looking for trouble to get some money to live?

So we Americans pull in another global first. More in prison -- 2,1 million -- and more ex-cons -- 6+ million and growing.

No wonder the rich folks are moving into those locked up communities.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Unholy Republican Alliance Self-Destructing?

Conservative Christians Warn Republicans Against Inaction
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Influential Christians say they are dissatisfied and may
withhold their support in the midterm elections.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/15/washington/15dobson.html?th&emc=th

..................

Happily for those of us who care about the rights of women, of minorities, the poor or rest of us heading in that direction, it looks as though the unholy alliance which has brought us the Republicans in power is breaking down. Let them now try to reconcile their libertarians with their Talibans. I doubt that they can pull it off. Thank G-d!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Boycotting Israel Is the Wrong Way to Go!

A British Teachers' Union Weighs a Boycott of Israeli
Teachers
By ALAN COWELL
The union is considering a boycott on Israeli lecturers who
do not dissociate themselves from what it called Israel's
"apartheid policies."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/world/europe/14britain.html?th&emc=th

................................

The impulse to lash out at either side in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not the way to go. Manifestly the two peoples there are linked together by geography as though they were a pair of raging Siamese twins.

Neither side is so innocent that the other cannot muster a litany of wrongs that deserve retaliation. But tit for tat is a dead end. It only prolongs the suffering of innocents. And taking sides compounds the conflict. Stop it, you Brits!

Israel/Palestine does not represent a war between good and evil. It is a tragic conflict between two peoples who have each been oppressed by external tormentors and who have now turned upon each other as surrogates for the past wrongs done to them. The Palestinians are not the Nazis and the Israelis are not a new European colonial power bent of extracting resources from the land and its peoples.

Both have so much to gain by making peace and sharing. Let us hope!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Identity Theft Via NSA's Recordings of Your Phone Calls?

When one stops to think about it, one gives basics on one's identity whenever one calls one's bank or pension fund, or whatever. Mine want my age, my SS#, my address, my phone. If the Bushies have access to all our phone calls, then one must assume that any crook in the system or hacker seeking identity information such as this, so as to stage a hit, may also have access to same.

This came to mind the other day when a routine credit check indicated that I was the alleged owner of a property in what turned out to be a seaside resort town of which I had never heard. Such a hit would involve using my credentials to purchase such and then a raid on it via a mortgage or equity line. Presumably I would -- as others have been -- eventually called upon to pay up on such properties. And recovering from such debts can be quite expensive both in legal fees, proofs that are difficult to establish at long distance, and at the very least in a distorted credit rating which I now have.

Beware! Verizon, I am suing you! http://www22.verizon.com/

And, no, I am not sending my identity particulars as you have requested!
My lawyer will post the summons on your door!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

And the Children of War?

Adults wage wars -- children suffer them!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_violence_against_Palestinian_children

One cannot help but wonder what the long term effects of the violence in Israel/Palestine -- and the hate propaganda emanating from either side there -- will have on their children?

I well recall my own 8-year-old experience with WW2. On December 7, 1941, about 5:30 p.m. a million or more of us American kids suddenly had our late Sunday afternoon children's programs (Jack Armstrong, All American Boy?) interrupted by the announcement that the U.S. fleet had been attacked at Pearl Harbor. Reports stressed that week that the wily Japanese had planned this sneak attack while a delegation from Japan had been carrying out a deceptive visit to Washington to work out peaceful accommodations. We quickly learned -- from our comic books and other sources -- that both the Japanese and Germans were monsters. They were depicted respectively with their buck teethed fangs gnashing innocent babies or with jackboots stamping on same -- with blood graphically gushing forth from the little ones in both cases.

Within a few months of the attack I was actively engaged in the war effort. We happened to live on the lea side of Avon mountain, west of Hartford, Connecticut, and our yard with its sweeping views of the flood plains to the west (and the glorious sunsets there, too) was selected as one of the checkerboard of aircraft warning station sites set up to alert command headquarters in Washington, D.C. of passing planes.

My own contribution as a precocious kid was to put together the heavy black card board mockups of war planes -- theirs and ours -- designed to inform the regular volunteers who manned our post on two hour shifts -- 24/7. I became the in residence expert on such things. I could identify specific makes of plane by ear, let alone sight. And I often trained nervous new volunteers on how to place their calls with 8 bits of information about the passing planes -- "one, bi, high . . . ."

We also had a grandstand seat to watch young fighter pilots in training practicing dog fights over the valley -- one day one did not pull out of a dive and crashed, scattering both the body parts of the pilot and also fragments of the plane -- the latter of which kids living nearby brought in pieces the next day to share with schoolmates.

I particularly recall one dark night when some of the volunteers came to my rescue. My second floor bedroom overlooked the post building and apparently, experiencing a horrible nightmare, I had climbed from my bed and was half hanging out the window when awakened by shouts from volunteers below who had heard my screams. This would now be called post traumatic stress?

It took me decades to overcome my deeply instilled hatred of both the Germans and Japanese -- a month long hiking trip down the Rhine with German and British kids as a teen (designed as a peace-making effort by the West German government when I was an exchange student in a British public school) helped convert Germans back to humans for me. I eventually translated a book from the German -- Christian Faith in Our Time by Fritz Buri. My whole generation of kids-of-the-war had much recovering to do. My parents told me that during that early wartime period I frequently awakened them with violent nightmares of which I had no memory the next day.

I assume that Israeli and Palestinian kids are undergoing the same traumatic experiences. Are their parents instilling in them -- directly or indirectly -- hatreds that should only belong to adults? I fear so from the attitudes that some share when commenting on the THEM!!! We adults must keep in mind what we are doing to our children when we wage our wars!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Yahoo Suddenly Blocked? More on "Owned"

Possibly others may have had the same experience that I did -- of having a sudden report that all postings to Yahoo were being "bounced." I went through the procedures to "unbounce" each of these and while testing managed to mess up the last headline of a posting which should be changed to "Owned and Operated by Corporate America."

While I am at it, I would add that it is fairly clear that Bush's view of democracy seems to be shaped by his experiences as a failed oil CEO and Harvard Business School studies where he announced in one class at least that he believed that the New Deal should be revoked. It is noticeable that his policies in office have followed this line -- decreases in taxes for the most wealthy and corporations, no increase in minimum wage, attacks on malpractice awards, no limitation on drug costs to corporations, attack on Social Security to convert it into an investor's risk game in which only those dealing stocks would be sure to prosper, reductions in Medicaid, no investment in affordable housing, no investment in early childhood education which has been proven as the only way to properly launch kids from low income cultures, no attempt to equalize the availability of funding of education for all children -- thus leaving those most in need with the poorest financial support, no serious attempt to alert the poorest in our society even to the benefits for which they are eligible (e.g. food stamps). No wonder that the public is at long last beginning to wake up -- despite Fox News' best efforts to mislead.

Poll Gives Bush Worst Marks Yet on Major Issues
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MEGAN THEE
Unhappiness about gasoline prices and Iraq have created a
grim political environment for the president, according to
the latest Times poll.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/washington/10poll.html?th&emc=th

Let us hope this spells a return to sanity come next year's elections.
In the meantime the nation is at terribly risk for another 2 and 1/2 years with the Bush administration!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
--
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Owned and Operated by Our Corporations

90% of our U.S. population is seeing a decline in real incomes. Poverty is just a death or an illness away per the following NY Times editorial:

Barely Staying Afloat

In a time of plenty, more American workers are in danger of
slipping into outright poverty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/opinion/10wed3.html?th&emc=th

..................

We are all trapped in an America now owned and operated by our corporations -- or more accurately their CEOs who are running them in their own personal interest. I am currently reading for a class Thursday night Max Weber's dark essay, Politics as Vocation, published shortly before his death in 1920:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber

Lest we forget -- the unholy alliance between major German corporations and the Nazi Lumpenproletariat emerged not so long thereafter. The parallels between the Bush administration's grab for territories in the Middle East and Hitler's drang nach Osten and demands for Lebensraum are truly chilling.

Incidentally, the chaos now emerging in Iraq is frightening, too. The npr reports this morning portend a fragmented militaristic state without a judiciary, disconnected from government or peoples -- government at best by corporate interests with tribal killings and divisions of the spoils. Democracy in Bush's mind -- and those of the neocons -- is not democracy as the rest of the world understands it. I wonder how long the American public will put up with both this plundering at home and our troops killing and being killed abroad? Ed Kent

http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Time to Make Peace!

By chance I happen to receive information daily on events in Israel/Palestine and the Middle East at large from nearly the entire spectrum of articulate views on things there. One cannot but be distressed at the failures of communication they manifest, let alone the absence of good will and human caring on the part of otherwise decent people.

I am not a pacifist. I was a child of WW2. I was preparing to fight in 'my' war (the Korean) before Eisenhower ended it off. However, as a social/political/legal philosopher, one time journalist, another time possible candidate for the foreign service, one trained in theology as well as philosophy, I am all too aware of the modern tendency to excuse "collateral damage" to innocent persons by those engaged in waging impassioned battles. WW2 was a monster illustration of this horror with Hitler's Blitz followed by the Allies' retaliation against innocent cities such as Dresden, the Japanese genocidal ranging around the Pacific with the U.S.'s retaliation and destruction of civilian lives from its massive Tokyo and other bombings (greater losses of civilian lives than those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined).

With a keen sense of the suffering that our militarists have been inflicting upon women, children, and other frail creatures, I have undertaken to draw together the elements and information otherwise buried in -- or intentionally obscured by -- the media which are virtually the only sources of information for most citizens in democratic states. This list -- Peace Efforts -- was formed as an outlet for those with comparable concerns -- an open forum to which participants could bring facts and share opinions. It is a lively list -- unmoderated.

Now I am trying to bring to life a comparable effort focused more narrowly on Israel/Palestine: I have listened too long to voices on either side of the Green Line which have erratically reached out to each other and then withdrawn to fire bombs and rockets -- not just stones, rubber bullets, and epithets -- at each other.

Here is a new group, Israel/Palestine:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine

which you are invited to join and use as an outlet for information only sometimes found in the NY Times or Jerusalem Post or Aljazeera. I have asked people on the scene to contribute to it regularly. I am personally dubious about Israel's current approach to security through building a wall. Needless to say things fly over walls -- potentially from thousands of miles away. Torturing the Palestinian public can only bring Israel more grief down the line. Killing innocent Israelis defeats the cause of the Palestinians. Tit for tat is not the way for either of these proud people to go. The world looks on and wonders how such madness can flourish among otherwise sane and intelligent people who have, themselves, been victims of so much oppression?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

The Aliens Are Coming!

It is pretty ironic that the Republican House voted to make felons of the very undocumented aliens who are keeping vegetables and fruit on our tables. Needless to say Latin Americans have retained a skill and willingness to do the dirty work of farming that Americans departed during the past century. Only our agribusinesses produce the meat products that are by and large unhealthy foods for us.

All that aside -- there are three other types of aliens that are subverting America and stealing our economic future:

1) Ruppert Murdoch, Australian media crook, has stolen our sources of information and corrupted them -- Fox News and other channels, papers such as the NY Post, publishing -- all spewing out sex, violence and celebrity gossip while despoiling those sources of information upon which any informed democracy depends. He need not have moved here. He was, however, welcomed aboard as is anyone who can plunk down at least $1,000,000 in corporate investments! And so many others are now investing in America and also shipping monies home to their friends and families.

2) The talented ones from India, China, and elsewhere are dominating such places as Silicon Valley. These folks come from nations that take education seriously and are filling in where we lack Americans with essential training and skills.

3) Our industrial and high tech competitors are displacing our industries and the jobs that go with them. China now does our industrial production as we build up a dangerous imbalance of trade -- and they are making noises about replacing the dollar with another currency? And the high tech guys and gals from or in India and Ireland now do our computerized things for far lower wages than Americans can possibly afford with our high living costs. Note that at Brooklyn College we are now teaching more students philosophy than computer skills because students in the latter area -- which used to be the guaranteed ticket to financial well-being -- now realize that they have been displaced by those internet aliens who have grabbed their jobs. Check out the home town of the next credit card person with whom you speak -- and help correct his/her pronunciation of yours, if they get a little wrong.

Yes, the aliens have invaded. We no longer own our country which we are now selling off to the highest corporate (alien) bidders. American prosperity will soon be a thing of the past when these aliens -- the international corporations and their employees -- have achieved majority stockholder ownership of America -- once the land of the free and the home of the brave. As for equal opportunity here -- forget it. We are all on treadmills now desperately trying to keep up with our invading alien competition.

Think about it!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Where the Problems Lie for Israel/Palestine

I don't like to start such a list off with an unpleasant reality, but I think such is precisely that with which it must deal here. I received a post the other day from Think-Israel that seems to manifest all the hatreds that one can imagine directed towards Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular: http://www.think-israel.org

I was relieved to receive the following response from Dorothy Naor, one of the serious peace workers in Israel/Palestine:

I clicked on 'Think Israel' thing. It is the ugliest right-wing thinking--the Lieberman style trash. With people like that in the world, one wonders how we'll ever have peace anywhere. But they aren't the majority, and heaven help us, I hope they never will be.

Dorothy

Pretty obviously there is a contingent on both sides of the Green Line which despises all those on the other side. However, my sense is that there are many others, hopefully a majority, to whom an appeal can be made to work towards truth and reconciliation.

Kwame Anthony Appiah has a piece on racisms in which he distinguishes intrinsic from extrinsic racism. The first is resistant to change because it is entangled in loyalties to the purveyor's own ethnic group. The latter can be overcome with facts and appeals to the better nature of those misled by hateful stereotypes about the 'OTHER'. Appiah has a strong record of analysis in this domain. His most recent book, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2006), appeals for mutual outreach and respect among the peoples of the world.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Thinking About Israel/Palestine

Think-Israel, which arrived today in my email, is a publication that as I scan it reflects a hostile perspective towards Islam as a whole that is all too familiar:

http://www.think-israel.org

In contrast to this restricted perspective I hope we can move to a more balanced understanding of the tensions within both the Israeli community and the surrounding Islamic ones. I had the good fortune to receive an excellent survey of the development and varieties of Muslim thought -- Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century:

http://www.ibtauris.com/ibtauris/display.asp?K=510000000051606&bic=HRDD*&ds=Islam&sort=sort_date/d&m=8&dc=94

by mainly British and American experts, which describes the considerable diversity in contemporary Islam -- the push pulls between the fundamentalists (Islamists) and secularists and the attempts by each to appeal to the traditionalists who are the great majority of the Muslims of the street who simply try to live a decent life according the the basic guidelines of the Qu'ran. My students from both these worlds give me hope that peace, if difficult, will be possible to achieve.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Why We Must Speak Candidly About Israel/Palestine

Some time a little prior to Yitzhak Rabin's tragic assassination a cross-section of us from various CUNY colleges were engaged in a once a week, year long seminar focused on various forms of discrimination, racism, and bigotry, and ways to cope with them in the classroom and in the wider world.

By chance late in the spring that year there had been a report that IDF troops had been encouraged/permitted to smash the hands of young Palestinians throwing rocks at them with two-by-fours. Someone mentioned this and almost spontaneously a round of comments went round the table reporting bad experiences that various seminar members had had with Jews -- ranging from landlord-tenant disputes to other things that I don't recall. Someone asked who supported Israel and who did not. I was startled to find the seminar divided almost exactly along ethnic/religious lines. All the Jewish members (plus me) indicated that we supported Israel (if not in this particular instance) and all the rest -- about half reported that they did not along with the negative comments I have just mentioned.

This experience echoed my childhood memories from Connecticut and Vermont where anti-Semitism -- not the killing kind fortunately -- was nearly universally manifest along with comparable prejudices against other groups -- newer immigrants (Italian, Irish and Polish at that time) and African Americans who were locked into our New England urban ghettos.

I offer this background because I sense that there is deep unvoiced U.S. criticism -- some of it justified -- of Israel's occupation tactics and expansion into the West Bank with their disastrous effects upon the Palestinians living there. Lest we forget, Bush's right wing fundamentalist supporters are looking forward to the restoration of Israel -- followed by its apocalyptic destruction along with all the unconverted (to Christianity) Jews! This is not the sort of support that I would welcome!

From the reports from friends there Israel is running on a parallel course with the U.S. It, too, is an aggressor, Its split between poverty and wealth is dividing it. Its military, too, is drawn mainly from the "lower classes" with the children of the well off finding a variety of escapes from military service -- or at least dangerous military assignments.

The bottom line here is that, as we criticize U.S. policies that violate human rights and international conventions, we must do the same with Israel/Palestine -- as well as the oppressive Arab states over there. But caveat: 'democracy', as is all too well known, can degenerate into tyranny of the majority, can be one of the most dangerous forms of government prone to sliding easily (as Plato noted) into demagoguery. Lest we forget, Hitler was democratically elected -- if not by a majority of Germans -- to the office through which he converted Germany into a totalitarian horror.

There is nothing more dangerous than silent, subterranean racism -- or anti-Semitism -- which I fear still haunts us here in the U.S. We are seeing this sort manifested in the all too typically American anti immigrant uproar -- how many actually favor the Republican Congressional vote to declare 11 million residents felons? We shall see.

I am fully aware of the deep animosities between the Israelis and Palestinians. But Israel is the dominant presence there and I see no alternative to it taking the initiative towards 'truth and reconciliation'. Such has been achieved elsewhere. Israel must find its own Nelson Mandela.

Lest we forget -- xenophobia and the disposition to oppress and start murderous wars are inherent flaws in human nature. We have no other alternative but to expose them for what they are so that we can counter their deadly consequences -- which we can only do by speaking out candidly while there is still time.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

On Our Way to Hell?

Ugly blatant attacks on people because of their religion or country of origin hit me directly because as a teacher of extremely bright kids in a port of entry college -- Brooklyn is half a college of recent immigrants -- I rarely don't have students from any of the given places or peoples attacked -- often refugees therefrom. They educate me. Broad scale attacks are as vicious as the anti-Semitism, the token admits of those with African roots, that haunted Yale in my student days and Vassar College as my first teaching position. So lest people forget, our xenophobia is inherently as human as are our wars. Now in this era of WMD inflaming hatreds, bigotries, racisms is the way to ultimate human disaster.

Put yourself in the position of the Iranians today. They had their democratically elected government subverted by the CIA and Brits in the early 1950s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddeq

Hussein attacked them with our (Rumsfeld's) blessing. They are hemmed in by nuclear powers that could erupt at any time (Israel, Pakistan, India, the U.S.). Theirs is a minority version of Islam and they face the instabilities of Afghanistan and Iraq with our disrupting American troops hemming them in on either side. One is reminded all too much of WW1 when arrogant pride led to a bloody awful war with the deaths of millions of innocent young men -- the "lost generation" -- and millions of innocent civilians as well -- forgotten now it seems as we replay our similar egomaniacal scenarios with far more at risk.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net