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Feb 6, 2010

White Racial Resentment Bubbles Under the Surface of the Tea Party Movement

 



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By Rich Benjamin, AlterNet
Posted on February 5, 2010, Printed on February 6, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145560/


Editor's Note: Rich Benjamin's commentary on the underlying "white grievance" currents in the Tea Party movement were buttressed Thursday by the statements of Republican Tom Tancredo, the opening speaker at the Tea Party convention. Tancredo told attendees that President Barack Obama was elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country," an allusion to how Southern states used literacy tests as part of an effort to deny suffrage to African American voters before the civil rights era.

The Tea Party movement, holding its first convention this weekend, is angling to be the most revolutionary force in American politics in name and in deed, since at least the 1960s counterculture. Only this time, the political insurgents command a party of Flour Power, not flower power.

The simmering movement is the whitest phenomenon on the national scene, evident not just in the millions of Caucasians committed to its cause, but in the bedrock beliefs stirring its anti-government contempt.

How fitting, therefore, that Sarah Palin keynote the movement's first organized confab. Neglected in all the fevered conversation around the movement's meteoric rise, and Palin's selection, is any useful reflection on what the cause and this figurehead stand for: white racial resentment. Packed beneath her beehive is a spitfire brew of optimistic, yet aggrieved, whiteness. Palin embodies a bizarre, sometimes alluring, combination of triumph and complaint that many Caucasian Tea Partiers identify with through and through.

Deciphering the racial codes on the movement's ubiquitous placards does not require a doctorate in semiotics. One popular sign shows the president's face and a caption: "Undocumented worker." Another combines Obama's image with this caption: "The Zoo Has an African Lion and the White House Has a Lyin' African!"

Aside from the festive, ad hominem attacks against President Obama, the Tea Party's leaders and its rank-and-file rarely mention race in debate, instead tucking it just under the surface of "nonracial" issues like health care reform, public spending, immigration, and pointedly, taxes.

Palin voices the right-wing drumbeat warning Americans that "government is on your back" and "you should keep your own money." Alongside other avid Tea Party supporters like Tom Tancredo and Glenn Beck, Palin gins-up conservative whites' existing resentment over race, carping over the "high taxes" for public services assumed to be wasted on "illegals" and minorities.

Denouncing government assistance and free school lunches at a town hall meeting in late January, South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer, a Tea Party supporter, said: "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that."

At a Tea Party rally in Boone County, Kentucky (roughly 92 percent non-Hispanic white), Congressman Geoff Davis called cap-and-trade legislation "economic colonization of the hardworking states that produce the energy, the food, and the manufactured goods of the heartland, to take that and pay for social programs in the large coastal states." In Tea Party-speak, "heartland" often means "white" -- what Palin calls "the real America" -- while "coastal state" means the urbanized communities that teem with racial minorities, doubling as "gateway states" for Latino immigrants.

"Immigrants are 21 percent of the uninsured, but only 7 percent of the population. This means white folks on Medicare or headed there will see benefits curtailed, while new arrivals from the Third World, whence almost all immigrants come, get taxpayer-subsidized health insurance," gripes Patrick Buchanan on his blog. "Any wonder why all those Tea Party and town-hall protests seem to be made up of angry white folks?"

The Tea Party movement ventures a nasty turn from classic economic liberalism to white-hot anger.

The bar-stool version of the Tea Party canard goes like this: Why should we, self-sufficient small-town whites, pay taxes to support all those welfare queens, food stamp cheats and Medicaid layabouts in the big cities and coastal states? The media's version, parroted by Palin and other Fox talking heads, commiserates with Americans in the heartland, christened "the average taxpayer," for unjustly having to subsidize ethnic enclaves that mooch off the national treasury.

Well, not so fast. A disproportionately high share of our federal government's tax income comes from racially diverse, immigrant-rich, urbanized states, including California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts; not from extremely homogeneous, conservative, anti-tax strongholds like Idaho, Montana, Utah, the Dakotas and Wyoming.

All of this is not to say that any given rank-and-file member of the movement personally despises racial minorities. Rather, the Tea Party ethos is a direct descendant of the anti-tax segregationist politics that swept the South in the 1950s and '60s.

Before the Tea Party's debut, a whole generation of powerful southern Republicans propelled their careers through a conservative tax-cutting, privatizing, "free-enterprise" politics that remains wildly popular in America's white outer suburbs and exurbs: Lee Atwater (GA), Newt Gingrich (GA), Dick Armey (GA), Tom DeLay (TX), Karl Rove (AL, TX), and George W. Bush. These suburban and exurban Republicans intimately understood their constituents' disdain for court-ordered desegregation. They fueled the rising mania for "individual freedom," "privatization," "states' rights" and social homogeneity that once defined their Southern home turf and now defines the Tea Party.

To pernicious effect, white Tea Partiers cloak themselves in the anachronistic rights-based outlook fine-tuned by '60s-era women and minorities. What's the difference between Sarah Palin and Al Sharpton? Lipstick. Pay closer attention: Palin is quite like the Baptist preacher from Harlem, only paler. Sharpton's exurb-lovin', carpoolin', straight-talkin' doppleganger has her hands tied fightin' for an aggrieved "silent majority" -- or is it a vocal soon-to-be racial minority? By 2050, non-Hispanic whites will be less than half the population.

"Tea Party Nation is a user-driven group of like-minded people who desire our God given Individual Freedoms which were written out by the Founding Fathers," according to the convention's Web site. Tea Partiers will bend your ear about "freedom from government" or their "Hunters' and Fishers' Bill of Rights." This white-inflected rights-based outlook champions individual and neighborhood "freedoms," withdrawn from the common nation, preoccupied by private interest, poised to behave according to private caprice. Tea Partiers contrive the right to live, make money, own property, zone neighborhoods, or protest taxes at will, without regard to the common good, a troublesome offshoot of rights-based agitprop.

Race is the subtext of now-potent populist appeals to whites, who feel battered from a tsunami of economic and cultural change. The Tea Party counterculture is waging a proxy war over race during America's rapidly shifting economy and demographic makeup.

The Tea Party is sounding a siren call of aspiration and a primal scream of resentment -- a whoop to Flour Power.


Rich Benjamin is the author of Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America.
He is senior fellow at the nonpartisan think tank Demos and sits on the board of the Roosevelt Institution. His commentary is featured on NPR and Fox Radio, and in newspapers nationwide.

© 2010 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/145560/



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An Ethnie without a sense of peoplehood will end up being used to achieve the goals of other ethnies.  -- Michael Santomauro 


A Sense of Peoplehood is not a Pathology

It is not racist for a professor such as Alan Dershowitz or for a professor like Kevin MacDonald to advocate for their ethnic group interests.

The words for bigotry, that are often used, such as: ant-Semitic, anti-white, anti-black, anti-Arab, anti-feminist, anti-gay and hundreds of other labels, are for the most part overstated. Instead, it should be seen as pro-white, or pro-Jewish or pro-women or pro-traditional family and not be ashamed of it.

These "pro" sensibilities are part of the human condition, not to be pathologized into an "anti."

It is about group interests.

A race or an ethnie without a sense of peoplehood or ethnichood will end up being used to achieve the goals of other ethnies. (Yes, ethnie, not ethnic).

The feelings or thoughts for peoplehood is not a pathology. The European-American will have White ethnic interests and it is not racist to have them. Just as Hispanics, Asians, Jews and Blacks have their own ethnic interests, it should not be a pathology for Whites to have ethnic interests. –Michael Santomauro


Become a member:




Peace.

Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
Call anytime: 917-974-6367
ReporterNotebook@Gmail.com
New release: Debating The Holocaust by Thomas Dalton_,_

__._,_.___
.

__,_._,___

Can you see this chaos amongst WASPS? Italians maybe?

 

KOSHER DOG FIGHT
FRACAS OVER FRANKFURTER SWITCHEROO


It was kosher chaos.

A riot erupted at a Brooklyn restaurant last week when Orthodox Jewish patrons discovered the "kosher" hot dogs on the menu were chicken franks that didn't answer to a higher authority.

What ensued was as unholy as the hot dogs. The eatery's frightened manager was punched in the face and fended off the angry mob with an electric carving knife until cops finally broke up the frankfurter fracas.

"They were yelling at the guy behind the counter," one witness told The Post. "They started spitting and throwing things at him. They were shaking the counter and trying to jump over to search the fridge."

Members of Shomrim, the local volunteer crime patrol, was at the scene before police.

"There were at least 100 people there. We sent everybody out to the street," a member said.

The Torah tussle began when a longtime patron noticed the unusually plump wiener he bought Monday night at Cheskel's Shawarma King in Borough Park didn't fit into a challah roll as usual.

Suspicious, he asked for proof of where the hot dogs were bought. The server brought him the package, which confirmed the Bar S brand jumbo chicken frank was not certified kosher.

Shocked Hasidic patrons, joined by dozens of passers-by, encircled the counter of the 13th Avenue eatery, demanding answers.

At least one patron hit besieged manager Yosef Baron in the cheek.

Baron kept them at bay by waving the electric knife in their faces an image captured on video now making the rounds on the Web.

No one was arrested.

Rabbi Naftali Meir Babad, who had certified the greasy spoon as kosher, determined the hot-dog heresy was the result of a "terrible accident."

Earlier in the night, a non-Jewish restaurant employee was sent out to buy frankfurters from a nearby kosher market.

Instead, the worker went to a Golden Apple Farm grocery across the street and loaded up on goy wieners that just didn't cut the mustard.

The restaurant was shut for two days as rabbis meticulously checked for other non-kosher foods.

Kitchen equipment that touched the offending meat was thrown out, and utensils were cleansed with a flame to purge any remnants of treif, or non-kosher food, in a process known as kashering.

The ultra-Orthodox community continued to boil over the roasted weenies, with talk of protests lingering all week.

"Nobody knows how long this was going on," one man fumed.

Restaurant owner Shmuel Baron, who reopened Thursday, called it a one-time mistake.


+++

An Ethnie without a sense of peoplehood will end up being used to achieve the goals of other ethnies.  -- Michael Santomauro 


A Sense of Peoplehood is not a Pathology

It is not racist for a professor such as Alan Dershowitz or for a professor like Kevin MacDonald to advocate for their ethnic group interests.

The words for bigotry, that are often used, such as: ant-Semitic, anti-white, anti-black, anti-Arab, anti-feminist, anti-gay and hundreds of other labels, are for the most part overstated. Instead, it should be seen as pro-white, or pro-Jewish or pro-women or pro-traditional family and not be ashamed of it.

These "pro" sensibilities are part of the human condition, not to be pathologized into an "anti."

It is about group interests.

A race or an ethnie without a sense of peoplehood or ethnichood will end up being used to achieve the goals of other ethnies. (Yes, ethnie, not ethnic).

The feelings or thoughts for peoplehood is not a pathology. The European-American will have White ethnic interests and it is not racist to have them. Just as Hispanics, Asians, Jews and Blacks have their own ethnic interests, it should not be a pathology for Whites to have ethnic interests. –Michael Santomauro


Become a member:




Peace.

Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
Call anytime: 917-974-6367
ReporterNotebook@Gmail.com
New release: Debating The Holocaust by Thomas Dalton_,_

__._,_.___
.

__,_._,___

Seven Years Behind Bars: Anniversary of Ernst Zundel's Arrest

 


Seven Years Behind Bars: Anniversary of Ernst Zundel's Arrest
Revisionists.com 

Seven years ago -- on Feb. 5, 2003 -- Ernst Zundel was arrested at his home in eastern Tennessee. Ever since he has been held behind bars, first in Canada and now in Germany, for his peaceful expression of non-conformist views. He is the most prominent "prisoner of conscience" in the western world today. Now 70 years of age, he is due to be released on or about March 5. 


`Defamation' Film Looks at Contemporary `Anti-Semitism'


A provocative, irreverent video by Israeli film-maker Yoav Shamir about "anti-Semitism," real and invented, in today's world. Shows how Zionists use a manipulated historical narrative, especially of "the Holocaust," to inculcate Jews with a paranoid sense of victimhood and "otherness," and feelings of fear, disregard and even contempt for non-Jews. Includes interviews with: Abe Foxman, director of the Zionist "Anti-Defamation League"; Norman Finkelstein, author of The Holocaust Industry ; Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby; Uri Avnery, Israeli peace activist. Runtime: one hour and 32 mins. 


Popular iPhone App of Mussolini Speeches is Withdrawn 
BBC News 

An iPhone application that allows users to download speeches by the former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini has been withdrawn. Its developer says he is removing it after legal threats. But the application has also faced protests from Jewish groups and Holocaust survivors who described it as offensive. IMussolini, as the application is known, has become the most popular iPhone download in Italy. It has even beaten video games based on the current film sensation Avatar. It is a 25-minute collection of video and audio clips from 100 of Mussolini's speeches. But now it has been withdrawn after a row with the film institute where the pictures came from. 


US May Kill `Threatening' Americans, Says Intelligence Chief 
The Washington Post 

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair acknowledged Wednesday that government agencies may kill U.S. citizens abroad who are involved in terrorist activities if they are "taking action that threatens Americans." Blair told members of the House intelligence committee that he was speaking publicly about the issue to reassure Americans that intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense "follow a set of defined policy and legal procedures that are very carefully observed" in the use of lethal force against U.S. citizens. Blair's unusually frank remarks come as the issue of targeting Americans for lethal action has attracted more notice. 


Iraq `Littered' With High Levels of Nuclear and Dioxin Contamination
The Guardian (Britain) 

More than 40 sites across Iraq are contaminated with high levels of radiation and dioxins, with three decades of war and neglect having left environmental ruin in large parts of the country, an official Iraqi study has found. Areas in and near Iraq's largest towns and cities, including Najaf, Basra and Falluja, account for around 25% of the contaminated sites, which appear to coincide with communities that have seen increased rates of cancer and birth defects over the past five years. 


A Terrifying Legacy of the Vietnam War 
The Telegraph (Britain) 

Another Vietnam War shell has exploded - this time, in a schoolyard. No one was injured when the artillery shell exploded in a school playing field on Wednesday, shattering windows and terrifying hundreds of students. Unexploded ordnance and mines have killed more than 42,000 people and wounded some 62,000 since the Vietnam War ended in 1975. 


Colorado City Cuts Into Services Considered Basic by Many
The Denver Post (Colorado) 

This tax-averse city [Colorado Springs] is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric. More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops -- dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled ... City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. 


In England, `Heretical Two' Lose Appeal on Internet Racism Case
BBC News 

Two men have lost their appeals against the UK's first conviction for inciting racial hatred via a foreign website. Simon Sheppard, 51, was sentenced to four years and 10 months, and Stephen Whittle, 42, to two years and four months at Leeds Crown Court in July. However, the Court of Appeal has reduced Sheppard's sentence by one year and Whittle's jail term by six months. Sheppard, from Selby, North Yorks, and Whittle, of Preston, Lancs, controlled US websites featuring racist material. During their first trial in 2008, they skipped bail and fled to California, where they sought asylum claiming they were being persecuted for their right-wing views, but were deported. 


In California, A New Campaign to Remove Prof. MacDonald 
Daily 49er -- California State University - Long Beach 

In the past week, psychology professor Kevin MacDonald had his class interrupted by an organization claiming his views and recent involvement in political organization the American Third Option party are seen as racist and anti-Semitic. MacDonald, a tenured professor at Cal State Long Beach, has been making headlines on the matter since he was investigated by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2006. The SPLC tracks hate crimes and groups across America ... Both Kauffman and Cabral are students at CSULB and members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a Marxist and Leninist organization that advocates revolutionary change and progressive reform. 


The Case Against Tony Blair
Patrick Cockburn 

... It was striking in Blair's testimony that so many of his references to Iraq are inaccurate. In trying to prove some connection between the perpetrators of 9/11 and Saddam's regime, he mentioned Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, later head of the Iraqi branch of al Qa'ida, as being in Iraq before Saddam was overthrown. He failed to mention that he was in a camp in Kurdistan in part of the country not controlled by Saddam Hussein. He said Iran intervened in Iraq because it feared a Shia democracy on its doorstep. In fact, Iran supported the Shia government in Baghdad after it was elected in 2005, but opposed the presence of American and British forces ... A YouGov poll earlier this month shows that 23 per cent of the public think he should be tried as war criminal. 


Jewish Groups Protest Popular iPhone App Sales of Mussolini Speeches 
The Times (Britain) 

Jewish groups and Holocaust survivors have protested to Apple over Italy's current best-selling iPhone application: a collection of the speeches of Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator. Demand for "iMussolini", subtitled "The man who changed the history of our country", has risen to the point where it is being downloaded 1,000 times a day according to Luigi Marino, 25, its creator. It is more popular than a video game based on the film Avatar and an X-ray machine app which "allows you to see your friends naked". The app, which costs 79 Euro cents, contains audio, video and text of 100 speeches ... 


Jewish Complaints of Pro-Nazi Videos on YouTube 
Daily Mail (Britain) 

Video-sharing website YouTube has been condemned for showing video clips glorifying Nazi troops. The scenes, accompanied by militaristic music, have drawn millions of hits from potential Nazi sympathisers and voyeurs. YouTube, which hosts film clips from the public, has 2,880 items on the Waffen SS, the most fanatical of Hitler's soldiers who were indicted for war crimes throughout WW2. The entries have a string of 'Sieg Heil' comments and praise for the fighting prowess of the Waffen SS, recruited for their unswerving loyalty to Nazism. The videos, some from Nazi propaganda news reels, have angered Jewish organisations who have called for YouTube to remove the 'hugely offensive' postings. 


US Grants Asylum to Home Schooling German Family
The Guardian (Britain) 

A US judge has granted political asylum to a German family who said they had fled the country to avoid persecution for home schooling their children. In the first reported case of its kind, Tennessee immigration judge Lawrence Burman ruled that the family of seven have a legitimate fear of prosecution for their beliefs. Germany requires parents to enrol their children in school in most cases and has levied fines against those who educate their children at home. Christians Uwe Romeike, a piano teacher, and his wife, Hannelore, moved to Morristown, Tennessee, in 2008 after German authorities fined them thousands of euros for keeping their children out of school and sent police to escort them to classes, Romeike said. 


Presidential Assassinations of US Citizens
Glenn Greenwald -- Salon 

... American citizens are now being placed on a secret "hit list" of people whom the President has personally authorized to be killed: "After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush gave the CIA, and later the military, authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad if strong evidence existed that an American was involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests ... The Obama administration has adopted the same stance." ... Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests." 


Cracking Down on 'Conflict Minerals': Millions Dying in Congo Conflict
Los Angeles Times -- Editorial 

The deadliest conflict since World War II, in which 5.4 million people have died and 200,000 women have been raped, rages far from Iraq and Afghanistan. It is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where murderous militias are battling for control of valuable minerals such as tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold, which are essential to the worldwide production of consumer electronics. Congolese, in other words, are dying in extraordinary numbers for our cellphones and video games, digital cameras and laptop computers. 


Wanted: Tony Blair For War Crimes
George Monbiot -- The Guardian (Britain) 

The only question that counts is the one that the Chilcot inquiry won't address: was the war with Iraq illegal? If the answer is yes, everything changes. The war is no longer a political matter, but a criminal one, and those who commissioned it should be committed for trial for what the Nuremberg tribunal called "the supreme international crime": the crime of aggression ... Without legal justification, the war with Iraq was an act of mass murder: those who died were unlawfully killed by the people who commissioned it. Crimes of aggression (also known as crimes against peace) are defined by the Nuremberg principles as "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties". 


Britain's Leaders Knew Impending Iraq Invasion Was Illegal, Says Former Official 
The Telegraph (Britain) 

Tony Blair and his ministers went to war in Iraq despite repeated warnings from senior Government advisers that they had "no leg to stand on" legally. During evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry into the war against Saddam, it emerged that Foreign Office lawyers were "unanimous" in their view that going to war without a United Nations mandate would be a "crime of aggression" likely to damage Britain's standing in the world. Sir Michael Wood, chief legal adviser at the Foreign Office, painted a vivid picture of how his team repeatedly intervened privately to correct ministers who were stating that a fresh UN resolution was not legally not legally necessary, but their advice was ignored. 


U.S. Foreign Aid Summary 


The US provides more aid to Israel than any other country. In 2006, the US gave $2.5 billion to the Zionist state, which has a population of about 7.5 million. By contrast, the impoverished nation of Haiti, with a population of more than eight million, received $163 million, and Peru, with a population of more than 27 million, received $133 million. Each year more American taxpayer money goes to Israel than to all of sub-Saharan Africa. 


US Budget Deficit Set to Hit $1.35 Trillion 
BBC News 

The US budget deficit is expected to reach $1.35 trillion in 2010, according to US Congress estimates. In 2009, the US deficit hit a record $1.4 trillion - equal to 9.9% of gross domestic product (GDP) - and the highest since the end of World War II. President Obama will make his first State of the Union address on Wednesday and will submit his budget plan on February 1. He is expected to announce a three-year partial spending freeze. The savings - expected to be about $15 billion off next year's budget and to amount to $250 billion during the next 10 years - are aimed at reducing the country's massive deficit. 


Many Europeans Believe Jews Exploit History for Money 
Haaretz (Israel) 

Nearly half of Western European believe that Jews exploit the persecution of their past as a method of extorting money, according to an annual Jewish Agency report released on Sunday. A joint report on anti-Semitism conducted by the Agency and the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs found that 42 percent of those polled by the University of Bielefeld in Germany agreed that "Jews exploit the past to extort money." The countries in which the highest percentage of the population agreed with that statement were Poland and Spain. According to the Jewish Agency, there were more anti-Semitic incidents in 2009 than in any year since the Second World War. 


German Court Summons Bishop Williamson for `Holocaust Denial' Remarks
Reuters 

A German court said on Wednesday it had summoned traditionalist Catholic bishop Richard Williamson to face charges he denied the Holocaust, an offence punishable by up to five years in jail. In comments broadcast on Swedish television last January, Williamson said he believed no more than 300,000 Jews perished in the Holocaust and that there were no gas chambers. 


The Bishop Williamson Case: Behind the Headlines 
Mark Weber and Jeff Rense 

The IHR director and the host of the Jeff Rense program take a spirited and informed look at the much-publicized Bishop Williamson case. They review the Bishop's controversial remarks on "the Holocaust," and what this affair means for Americans, Christians and the world. As Weber explains, the uproar over Williamson's much-criticized "Holocaust denial" statements is not really about historical truth or "hate," but about Jewish-Zionist power and its role in our culture. Audio recording of broadcast of Feb. 24, 2009. Runtime: 38:17 mins. 


Incarcerated Revisionists: Write to Europe's Prisoners of Conscience 



Write to Europe's most prominent prisoners of conscience, including Ernst Zündel, Horst Mahler and Sylvia Stolz. Here are the addresses of individuals who are behind bars in Germany and Austria for expressing dissident, "banned" views. 



Obama Ignores Key Afghan Warning
Ray McGovern 

Nothing highlights President Barack Obama's abject surrender to Gen. David Petraeus on the "way forward" in Afghanistan more than two cables U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry sent to Washington on Nov. 6 and 9, 2009, the texts of which were released by the New York Times. No longer is it possible to suggest that Obama was totally deprived of good counsel on Afghanistan; Eikenberry got it largely right. Sadly, the inevitable conclusion is that, although Obama is not as dumb as his predecessor, he is no less willing to sacrifice thousands of lives for political gain. 


U.S. Envoy's Cables Show Worries on Afghan Plans 
The New York Times 

The United States ambassador in Kabul warned his superiors here in November that President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan "is not an adequate strategic partner" and "continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden," according to a classified cable that offers a much bleaker accounting of the risks of sending additional American troops to Afghanistan than was previously known ... "Sending additional forces will delay the day when Afghans will take over, and make it difficult, if not impossible, to bring our people home on a reasonable timetable," he wrote Nov. 6. 


Mussolini Speeches Are Apple iTunes Hit 
The Telegraph (Britain) 

A collection of speeches by Benito Mussolini has become an unlikely and controversial hit on the internet. The speeches, the last of which was delivered in 1938 when Italy introduced laws which discriminated against Jews, are the second-most downloaded application on the Italian version of Apple's iTunes website. ... Since the application was launched on Jan 21, it has been downloaded about 1,000 times a day. "The first day it was downloaded only 55 times, the second day more than 600 and from the third day I had on average 1,000 downloads a day," Mr Marino said. 


A Heated Exchange on Zionism's `Holocaust Industry'
"Cross Talk" -- RT television (Russia) 

A heated exchange between two Jewish scholars on the legacy of the Holocaust today. It its memory being abused? Does Israel use "the Holocaust" as a political weapon? Norman Finkelstein, Jewish scholar and author of The Holocaust Industry, says that Israel and its defenders have used "the Holocaust" as a "shakedown racket" and a tool of "blackmail" in extorting money, for example from Swiss banks. Israel Charny, director of Israel's Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, responds with pious evasions and attacks Finkelstein's style and character. Runtime: 25:47 mins. 


Holocaust Remembrance is a Boon for Israeli Propaganda
Gideon Levy - Haaretz (Israel) 

... Wednesday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and an Israeli public relations drive like this hasn't been seen for ages ... A thousand speeches against anti-Semitism will not extinguish the flames ignited by Operation Cast Lead, flames that threaten not only Israel but the entire Jewish world. As long as Gaza is under blockade and Israel sinks into its institutionalized xenophobia, Holocaust speeches will remain hollow. As long as evil is rampant here at home, neither the world nor we will be able to accept our preaching to others, even if they deserve it. 


Jews Are A `Source of Problems,' Says Malaysian Ex-PM 
JTA 

Malaysia's former prime minister accused America's "Jewish lobby" of preventing President Obama from ending the war in Afghanistan. Local Malaysian media reported that Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who ruled the Muslim nation between 1981 and 2003, ... went on to say that Jews "had always been a problem in European countries. They had to be confined to ghettoes and periodically massacred. But still they remained, they thrived and they held whole governments to ransom. Even after their massacre by the Nazis of Germany, they survived to continue to be a source of even greater problems for the world," he said. 


Iraq Invasion Violated International Law, Dutch Inquiry Finds 
The Guardian (Britain) 

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a violation of international law, an independent inquiry in the Netherlands has found. In a damning series of findings on the decision of the Dutch government to support Tony Blair and George Bush in the strategy of regime change in Iraq, the inquiry found the action had "no basis in international law." The 551-page report, published today [Jan. 12] and chaired by former Dutch supreme court judge Willibrord Davids, said UN resolutions in the 1990s prior to the outbreak of war gave no authority to the invasion. "The Dutch government lent its political support to a war whose purpose was not consistent with Dutch government policy. The military action had no sound mandate in international law," it said. 


Obama: A Hawk On Military Spending
Steve Chapman 

Anyone who was hoping the administration would bring a modest downsizing of the nation's defense establishment and global military role has to be feeling like Bernard Madoff's investors. Escalation is underway in Afghanistan, the Army is expanding and the Pentagon is on the all-you-can-eat diet ... Anyone looking back 50 years from now at objective indicators would have trouble identifying a meaningful difference between the current president and the previous one ... Obama's policy on the war he once opposed is not similar to George W. Bush's: It is identical. 


British Invasion of Iraq Was Illegal, Says Ex-Government Lawyer
Agence France Presse 

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was illegal, a former top British government lawyer told a public inquiry into the war Tuesday, three days before ex-prime minister Tony Blair appears. "I considered that the use of force against Iraq in March 2003 was contrary to international law," Michael Wood, chief legal advisor to the Foreign Office between 1999 and 2006, told the Chilcot inquiry in London. "In my opinion, that use of force had not been authorised by the Security Council, and had no other legal basis in international law." Wood said he told ministers of his concerns but was brushed aside ... 


Nazi Souvenirs on Sale in Israel 
Ynet News (Israel) 

If it happened in any other country, we'd be crying 'anti-Semitism!' but it's happening in the first Hebrew city in broad daylight. And yes, there are customers / ... Then I see medals, coins, banknotes and letters - all authentic, all from the time of the Third Reich, and all displayed in broad daylight in the first Hebrew city, on sale in exchange for Israeli currency. ... Hitler has yet to become a cultural icon - a situation soon to change, judging by the stalls at Tel Aviv's flea market. 


Hitler's Fish Knife: The Trade in Nazi Memorabilia
BBC News 



A look at the robust and growing trade in Nazi memorabilia. Audio recording of BBC report, including an interview with historian David Irving. 



Television Under the Swastika 
Spiegel TV (Germany) 

A documentary look, with memorable images, at television in Third Reich Germany, which was a world leader in television technology and broadcasting. Runtime: 54:44 mins. 



Meritocracy and Jewish Kinship Networks 
Philip Weiss 

.. .. How much of Jewish achievement reflects the fact that Jews look out for one another? When I had to get a partner on this website to keep it going, I was most comfortable getting another Jew. Years ago when I was at the Harvard Crimson newspaper, my Irish-Catholic friend Mary Ridge informed me that it was a "Jewish club"- we selected for our own kind; and the Crimson produced a lot of professional journalism talent. I have gotten most of my journalism work from Jewish bosses. Jews have kinship networks as strong as other people's, maybe more strong .. .. So I think some of the amazing record of Jewish achievement reflects discrimination; and Jews are powerful enough in this society that we ought to be conscious of that. 


Polish Bishop Accuses Jews of Exploiting Holocaust 
Agence France Presse 

A retired Polish bishop accused Jews of exploiting the Holocaust for propaganda purposes in remarks that appeared Monday on a Rome-based traditionalist Roman Catholic website ... "The Holocaust as such is a Jewish invention," said the former spokesman of Poland's Bishops Conference. The Shoah is "used as a propaganda weapon and to obtain advantages that are often unjustified," he charged. Pieronek, who was a friend of the late Polish pope John Paul II, added: "You could speak just as forcefully and establish a day of remembrance for the many victims of communism, persecuted Catholics and Christians and so on." Accusing Jews of "intolerable arrogance," he said they "enjoy good press because they are supported by powerful financial means, enormous power and the unconditional backing of the United States." 


World Has `Privilege and Obligation' to Defend Israel, Says Israeli Leader
Israel National News - Arutz Sheva (Israel) 

The [Israel] government has dedicated today's meeting to the memory of the six million Jews starved, tortured and massacred in the Holocaust. This Wednesday, the United Nations and at least 20 countries will mark International Holocaust Day. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, speaking at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting, said, "I hope the United Nations will remember what happened when the Jews did not have a state - and the privilege and obligation of the international community to defend the Jewish State's existence." 


Blair Was Warned That Attack on Iraq Needed UN Go-Ahead
The Independent (Britain) 

Tony Blair [then British prime minister] was warned two months before the invasion of Iraq it would be illegal to go to war without United Nations' authority, the inquiry into the conflict heard today ... The inquiry heard how Mr Straw rejected the advice of his senior legal adviser at the Foreign Office, Sir Michael Wood, that an invasion without a UN Security Council resolution specifically authorising military action would be a "crime of aggression". Sir Michael's deputy Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who resigned in protest on the eve of the invasion in March 2003, described the Government's treatment of the legal advice as "lamentable". 


British Legal Decision on 2003 Iraq War Was `Lamentable' 
BBC News 

A [British] Foreign Office lawyer who resigned in protest at the Iraq war said the way ministers weighed up the legal case for the invasion was "lamentable". Elizabeth Wilmshurst told the Iraq inquiry she thought the war was unlawful without express UN backing. And she said it was "extraordinary" that Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had only been asked for his opinion days before British troops went in. Ministers argue that existing UN resolutions justified the use of force. The testimony of Ms Wilmshurst and her then boss Sir Michael Wood made it clear that the legal team at the Foreign Office believed that the war was illegal under international law. 


Israeli Leader Vows to Keep Zionist Settlements In Occupied Land
BBC News 

The Israeli prime minister has taken part in tree-planting ceremonies in the West Bank while declaring Israel will never leave those areas. Benjamin Netanyahu said the Jewish settlements blocs would always remain part of the state of Israel. His remarks came hours after a visit by US envoy George Mitchell who is trying to reopen peace talks between Israel and Palestinians. 


China Economy Sees Strong Growth
BBC News 

China has said its economy expanded by 8.7 percent in 2009, exceeding even the government's own initial expectations. The pace of change increased as the year went on, with growth in the final quarter of 2009 increasing by 10.7 percent from the same period a year earlier. China is now on course to overtake Japan and become the world's second-biggest economy. 


Genetic Heritage Unites Jews, Says Author 
Jewish Life Televsion - Video 

Jews around the world have a remarkably high level of genetic unity, says Jon Entine in his new book, "Abraham's Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People." He cites up-to-date DNA research to show that what makes the "Chosen People" Jewish is largely a matter of shared ancestry. A JLTV "On the Hour" video report. Runtime: 7:25 mins. 


Why They Hate Us? It's Not a Secret
Ron Smith -- The Baltimore Sun 

You'll remember that shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush said the motivation of the hijackers was that they hated freedom. Hating freedom seemed then and now to be a pretty weak reason to give up one's own life to inflict death and destruction on others. People who had been paying attention knew what the real reasons for the Islamist radicals' actions were -- Osama bin Laden himself had laid them out in detail. They included America's support of Israel in its subordination of the Palestinians and its attacks on Lebanon; the propping up of pro-American kleptocracies in Muslim lands; and the presence of U.S. forces on the "sacred soil" of Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War. 


Accepting Various Truths
Helen Thomas 

No one in the Obama administration is going to acknowledge that our foreign policy in the Middle East has alienated many Arabs. The U.S. pro-Israel policy and our shocking neglect of the beleaguered Palestinians underlie almost every initiative or tactical tilt that comes out of Washington ... The United States spends more for its arsenal than any other 10 countries combined. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. accounts for more than 40 percent of the world's total military spending. China is in second place, at a relatively puny 5.8 percent. 


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An Ethnie without a sense of peoplehood will end up being used to achieve the goals of other ethnies.  -- Michael Santomauro 


A Sense of Peoplehood is not a Pathology

It is not racist for a professor such as Alan Dershowitz or for a professor like Kevin MacDonald to advocate for their ethnic group interests.

The words for bigotry, that are often used, such as: ant-Semitic, anti-white, anti-black, anti-Arab, anti-feminist, anti-gay and hundreds of other labels, are for the most part overstated. Instead, it should be seen as pro-white, or pro-Jewish or pro-women or pro-traditional family and not be ashamed of it.

These "pro" sensibilities are part of the human condition, not to be pathologized into an "anti."

It is about group interests.

A race or an ethnie without a sense of peoplehood or ethnichood will end up being used to achieve the goals of other ethnies. (Yes, ethnie, not ethnic).

The feelings or thoughts for peoplehood is not a pathology. The European-American will have White ethnic interests and it is not racist to have them. Just as Hispanics, Asians, Jews and Blacks have their own ethnic interests, it should not be a pathology for Whites to have ethnic interests. –Michael Santomauro


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