Vladislav Davidzonthe art of doing the impossible – thoughts on the great turning

[Sent to a mailing list in response to a call for more secrecy in future protests]

Sisters and brothers,

We should not be talking about secrecy as a value we should adopt. That is what the corrupt ones who hold power in our society want most. They want to drive us under ground, to make us illegitimate, to silence our voices. We cannot let that happen. We cannot let them win by default. We must not allow ourselves to become marginalized, for our views and beliefs are in fact quite mainstream, if only the masses stopped to examine their own views. And after all, is forcing that examination of values not what we aim to do?

We must never cease to see our struggle in the context of those who have come before us and those who will come after.
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Whenever I bring up the question of Americas financial aid to Israel, inevitably someone will always try to squash any discussion by concocting “American interests” that are supposedly being protected by Israel. History however seems to paint a quite different story.

It seems that our trusted ally has a strange record of attacking its best friend whenever that friend stands in the way. According to this CNN article, in 1967 Israel deliberately bombed USS Liberty, murdering 34 american sailors and wounding 171.

Protecting American interests, indeed…

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It seems that the number of dead in Iraq now exceeds the casualties of Vietnam in its early years, according to this article reprinted from Reuters.

“The U.S. death toll in Iraq has surpassed the number of American soldiers killed during the first three years of the Vietnam War, the brutal Cold War conflict that cast a shadow over U.S. affairs for more than a generation.”

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It seems that some folks do not appreciate opposing views much.

The background: I sent an email to all of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce members requesting them to sign the Petition for America. Apparently at least one guy didn’t appreciate it much, and within only a couple hours, received the following message from a certain Rafael from New York…

“Your e-mail is really saying all sorts of evil things about the United States and its president. It’s bad for so may reasons.

Your e-mail and it’s link is just another vain attempt to knock The United States. Stuff like that is the glue of the Left Coalition, it’s the opium of radical intellectuals and the crack in Osama bin Laden’s pipe. This anti-Americanism provides the drumbeat for protesters who march at every significant left-wing rally….”

Anti-american agenda eh? Read the rest of the post for the whole e-mail.

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I don’t think this one requires any commentary…

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti – Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”

- David Ben Gurion, First Israeli Prime Minister
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Recently I delivered a speech about Palestine to a packed auditorium at the College of Staten Island. Afterwards, one of the members of the audience asked why the UN or the US has not gotten involved in the Palestinian conflict by sending peace keeping orces. I responded with a well-based accusation against the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), stating that Washington is corrupt and awash in money of pro-Israeli interests. Immediately one of the other panelists, a well known professor, claimed my remark to be anti-Semitic in nature. Conveniently the academic also failed to factually challenge my accusation, probably because he knew my claim to be completely true.

Dissent has never been appreciated by any power structure, but few factions of our society have developed better ways of squashing it than the self-proclaimed Zionist defenders of democracy in the Middle East.
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After spending several hours reading the report by the Project for a New American Century, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” I was struck by several curious tidbits that sound all too scary. The PNAC team includes folks like Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, and other right-wing lunatics, with a focus literally on world domination, that now happen to be running our country. Given the source, it may be wise to start paying attention to their mad ramblings as they now constitute our immediate reality.

For those not aware of the report, this is an infamous paper published in September 2000 which calls for a number of changes including a 3.8% GDP defense budget, star wars, and a full modernization of the military. It also has a tidbit stating that such a modernization would be a very long process, unless aided by a “pearl harbor”-like event to speed things along. They got their budget, star wars, and the World Trade Center to justify it, alright.

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Déjà vu! There is something eerily reminiscent about being greeted by boys in green army uniforms before boarding a train. Well, at least they got rid of the M-16 submachine guns. Now, if we can just get rid of the soldiers themselves, we’ll be set. They have mysteriously disappeared out of New York City subways though, at least until the rainbow “terror alert” goes up a notch again.

While some small victories have come since that faithful day on September 11, the bad news seems to greatly outweigh the good…
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