Holly is a symbol of goodwill and joy. In the Victorian language of flowers, holly means foresight. Holly is seen as a symbol of good luck in both Christianity and Islam. But most importantly for me, it is said that disputes are often solved "under the holly tree"
LISTING OF DEMONSTRATIONS TO BREAK THE SILENCE ON GAZA!
Thanks to all who wrote to inform us of their demonstrations. The following is a partial listing of emergency protests taking place in the US, Europe and Australia. Some may have already taken place. We apologize if your demo has not been listed as yet. Please check http://al-awda.org/alert-gaza3.html for future updates.
Albuquerque, New Mexico: Saturday January 26, 2:00-3:30 PM, Corner of Tulane and Central S.E.
Anaheim, California: Saturday January 26, 1 PM 512 S. Brookhurst St. Between Orange Ave. & Broadway
Barmen, Germany: Saturday January 26, 11 PM wigil followed rally in Wuppertal, in front of the town hall in Barmen
Berlin, Germany: Wednesday 23 January 5:00 to 7:00 PM, Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
Boston, Massachusetts: Thursday, January 24, noon Israeli Consulate and Saturday, January 26, noon-1 PM in Harvard Square
Champaign, University of Illinois at Urbana: Tuesday January 22, 11 AM at the Quad
Charlotte, North Carolina: Saturday January 26, 4 PM Forum, Charlotte Energy Solutions, 337 Baldwin Ave; Organized by Charlotte Action
Chicago, Illinois: Tuesday January 29, 5 PM at the Lakeshore Theater, 3175 North Broadway (at benefit for the Friends of the 'Israeli Defense Force'). Initiated by ISM. Call 773-463-0311 for more information.
Cleveland, Ohio: January 26, 2 PM at Cleveland's Market Square at W. 25th & Lorain Avenue, across from the West Side Market - March to West 25th and Franklin
Costa Mesa, California: Friday, January 25, 5-7 PM, vigil at Bristol & Anton
Edinburgh, Scotland: Wednesday January 23, 5:30 PM at the foot of the Mound, Princes Street.
Glasgow, Scotland: Friday January 25, 5:30 PMGeorge Square.
Leicester, England: Thursday 24 January, 5.30 to 6.30 PM The Clock Tower, Town Centre
London, England: Thursday January 24, 6 PM and Saturday January 26, 4 PM Opposite 10 Downing Street, Whitehall.
Melbourne, Australia: Friday January 25 8:00 AM rally at the offices of ABC Radio at Southbank.
Montreal, Canada: Wednesday January 23, 5 PM, Phillips Square, Saint Catherine Street opposite The Bay department store (Metro McGill) and Friday January 25, 2:00 PM De Maisonneuve Boulevard corner of MacKay Street, Montreal (Metro Guy-Concordia).
New York, New York: Friday January 25, 3 PM, and Saturday January 26 1 PM - both at the 'Israeli' Embassy, 43rd St. and 2nd Ave.
Paris, France: Wednesday January 23, 5:30 PM at the Palais de l'Elysee.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Friday, January 25 12 noon, press conference and vigil in front of the Israeli Consulate (15th & Locust) and Saturday, January 26 assemble at 12 noon to march from 5th and Market Sts. to the Israeli Consulate (15th & Locust)
Phoenix, Arizona: January 26, 6:30 PM Downtown Tempe, at the corner of Mill Ave and University Drive.
St. Paul, Minnesota: Friday January 25, 4:15-5:30 P.M., Corner of Summit and Snelling Aves
San Diego, California: Friday January 25, 3:00 - 5:30 PM downtown corner of Broadway and Front Street (infront of Federal Building)
San Francisco, California: Friday, January 25, 4-6 PM, Israeli Consulate, 456 Montgomery St. (near California).
Santa Barbara, California Friday 25 January, 11 AM - 1 PM at UC Santa Barbara in front of Arbor Area
Seattle, Washington: Friday January 25 4 PM, Westlake Park, 4th & Pine streets.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota: Saturday January 26, 12 Noon at 12th & Phillips
Strasbourg, France: Saturday 26 January, 5 to 6 PM, Place Kleber
Swansea, Wales: Saturday January 26, 12 PM, City Centre of Swansea Front of the Castel
Toronto, Canada: Friday January 25, 5 PM Israeli Consulate at 180 Bloor St. West
Vienna, Austria: Saturday, January 26, 2 - 4 PM at the Pestsäule/Graben
Washington DC: Friday January 25, 4 PM at the Israeli Embassy, 3514 International Dr. N.W.
In a bold and brave move yesterday, the people of Gaza broke down the Egyptian prison wall keeping them from freedom and streamed by the hundreds of thousands in to Egypt to buy food and other supplies which because of the Israeli blockade, have been made totally unavailable to the people. The UN has condemned the Israeli blockade, various other governments have condemned it also in the strongest of terms. The people of Gaza are STARVING and dying from the lack of medicines and refused entry for medical care in to Israel as this collective punishment goes on.
The news is filled with the stories of this prison break but there is also another side to this story, there are also Palestinians on the Egyptian side of the border who have been unable to return to Gaza for YEARS to see their own families living there. Below is this "other side" to this story.
MIDDLE EAST Gazans move freely after years Thu, 24 Jan 2008
Amid a general buying frenzy, many Gazans are taking advantage of a blown-out border with Egypt to visit family or just see what it feels like to leave their fenced-off home at will.
Mussa and Rahmeh Naji woke up at the crack of dawn, scooped up their three children and headed on foot from their Egyptian village of Jura toward the breached border 10 kilometres away.
Dusty and exhausted, it was nearly midday when they finally got to the town of Rafah — until two days ago divided by a series of walls and today a bustling human hub filled with thousands of Gazans stocking up on goods.
"It's been seven years that I haven't seen my family," says Rahmeh, holding her five-year-old daughter Nada and four-year-old son Mohammed by the hand. "I married my husband — he's Egyptian — and since then I haven't seen them."
In the central Gaza town of Nusseirat less than an hour's drive north, Rahmeh's entire family awaited them. "I'm the only one who lives in Egypt," she says. "My parents, my cousins, my nephew, they're all in Nusseirat."
Says her husband Mussa, carrying their two-year-old daughter Fatima on his back: "Today is a really happy day for us and we thank the Palestinians for having blown up this wall."
When militants blew up stretches of barriers marking the Gaza-Egypt border overnight on Wednesday, they allowed Gazans to leave their narrow coastal strip without hindrance for the first time in years.
The territory — with 1.5 million residents, one of the world's most densely-populated places — is sandwiched between Egypt, which normally requires visas, and Israel, which has progressively tightened restrictions on movement since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000.
The Israeli restrictions were turned up a notch in June 2006 after Gaza militants seized an Israeli soldier in a deadly raid; then again a year later when Islamist Hamas violently seized power in the territory, routing forces loyal to president Mahmud Abbas in a week of deadly clashes.
They culminated last week with a full-scale lockdown ordered by the defence ministry in response to persistent rocket and mortar fire.
But a day after Israel eased the blockade, Gaza militants set off a series of explosions that levelled sections of the walls separating Gaza from Egypt — and since then, Gaza residents have been able to leave their fenced-off home that they usually call an open-air prison at will.
"I just came here to smell the liberty," says Fawsa al-Jisha, gazing around while surrounded by her nine daughters. "I haven't left Gaza for a really long time."
But unlike most of the human tide, she was not going to walk past the mangled barrier into Egypt.
"I am afraid to go inside Egypt because I'm afraid that they'll suddenly close the border and I don't want to be stuck in Egypt."
Salma Abu Shaar of Gaza's Rafah is today finally able to see her sister, whose house stands less than a kilometre (half a mile) from hers, but on the Egyptian side of Rafah.
"The last time I saw my family was two and a half years ago, when Israelis left the Gaza Strip" withdrawing settlers and soldiers in September 2005.
"Before that, we used to be one family, living next door. Now we are separated and today we can finally reunite."
Saber Awad (27), took care to cross into Egypt just hours after the border barriers came down, heading to do his duty before his aunt living in the town of El-Arish.
"Her son died a few months ago and I couldn't present my condolences because I was blocked in Gaza," he told AFP on Wednesday.
Yesterday while scanning the news on the internet concerning the situation in Gaza, I found that Mohamed Omer's article "Gaza: No Rights, Little Mercy" was republished HERE on Periodica26.Cuba (English link). It never ceases to amaze me that Mohamed and all the other journalists in Gaza who are living in this besieged ghetto, are risking their very own lives to get the news out to the world of what is happening to their own people. Without their reporting, the world would not know what is happening INSIDE Gaza, and we would be left with the skewed news from the mass media which to a very great deal, wants us as it's readers to believe that the people of Gaza are not suffering from Israel's BRUTAL and ILLEGAL collective punishment.
The fact that Mohamed and all the other journalists ARE being heard, is found as proof positive in the official statement made by the Cuban Foreign Ministry today. When will the rest of the world hear too, and STOP turning a blind eye to the Israeli crimes in Palestine?
Let us all keep Mohamed and all the other journalists in Gaza fighting SO hard to get the story of the suffering of the people of Gaza out to the world in our prayers. For without this news, none would know the TRUTH.
Statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
THE Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba has followed with extreme concern the recent intensification of acts of aggression against the Palestinian population on the part of the Israeli government, which has caused dozens of deaths and injuries.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers inadmissible and criminal the siege of the Gaza Strip, including the cutting off of electricity and food supplies to 1.5 million Palestinian civilians in direct violation of international law and the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba expresses its most energetic condemnation of these acts by the Israeli government aimed at annihilating the Palestinian people and breaking their resistance through hunger and thirst, including children, women, the sick and the elderly, who are suffering the forceful and illegal occupation of their territory and are the object of the inhuman collective punishment imposed once again by the occupying forces.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba demands that the Israeli government immediately ends the inhuman blockade of the Gaza Strip and calls for the mobilization of the international community to demand respect for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the establishment of an independent and sovereign state with its capital in East Jerusalem, and the unconditional return of all the Arab territories occupied in June 1967, as the only way to attain a just and lasting peace for all the nations of the region.
Chalmers Johnson is speaking the truth, and it's about time the American public wakes up and listens to him, before it's too late, if it isn't already, which is precisely what he is telling us. Read also, "George of Arabia"
Going Bankrupt
Many neoconservatives and poorly informed patriotic Americans believe that, even though our defense budget is huge, we can afford it because we are the richest country on Earth. Unfortunately, that statement is no longer true, says Chalmers Johnson.
Why the Debt Crisis Is Now the Greatest Threat to the American Republic
The military adventurers of the Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups of men thought that they were the "smartest guys in the room," the title of Alex Gibney's prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination.
As a result, going into 2008, the United States finds itself in the anomalous position of being unable to pay for its own elevated living standards or its wasteful, overly large military establishment. Its government no longer even attempts to reduce the ruinous expenses of maintaining huge standing armies, replacing the equipment that seven years of wars have destroyed or worn out, or preparing for a war in outer space against unknown adversaries. Instead, the Bush administration puts off these costs for future generations to pay -- or repudiate. This utter fiscal irresponsibility has been disguised through many manipulative financial schemes (such as causing poorer countries to lend us unprecedented sums of money), but the time of reckoning is fast approaching.
There are three broad aspects to our debt crisis. First, in the current fiscal year (2008) we are spending insane amounts of money on "defense" projects that bear no relationship to the national security of the United States. Simultaneously, we are keeping the income tax burdens on the richest segments of the American population at strikingly low levels.
Second, we continue to believe that we can compensate for the accelerating erosion of our manufacturing base and our loss of jobs to foreign countries through massive military expenditures -- so-called "military Keynesianism," which I discuss in detail in my book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. By military Keynesianism, I mean the mistaken belief that public policies focused on frequent wars, huge expenditures on weapons and munitions, and large standing armies can indefinitely sustain a wealthy capitalist economy. The opposite is actually true.
Third, in our devotion to militarism (despite our limited resources), we are failing to invest in our social infrastructure and other requirements for the long-term health of our country. These are what economists call "opportunity costs," things not done because we spent our money on something else. Our public education system has deteriorated alarmingly. We have failed to provide health care to all our citizens and neglected our responsibilities as the world's number one polluter. Most important, we have lost our competitiveness as a manufacturer for civilian needs -- an infinitely more efficient use of scarce resources than arms manufacturing. Let me discuss each of these.
The Current Fiscal Disaster
It is virtually impossible to overstate the profligacy of what our government spends on the military. The Department of Defense's planned expenditures for fiscal year 2008 are larger than all other nations' military budgets combined. The supplementary budget to pay for the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not part of the official defense budget, is itself larger than the combined military budgets of Russia and China. Defense-related spending for fiscal 2008 will exceed $1 trillion for the first time in history. The United States has become the largest single salesman of arms and munitions to other nations on Earth. Leaving out of account President Bush's two on-going wars, defense spending has doubled since the mid-1990s. The defense budget for fiscal 2008 is the largest since World War II.
Before we try to break down and analyze this gargantuan sum, there is one important caveat. Figures on defense spending are notoriously unreliable. The numbers released by the Congressional Reference Service and the Congressional Budget Office do not agree with each other. Robert Higgs, senior fellow for political economy at the Independent Institute, says: "A well-founded rule of thumb is to take the Pentagon's (always well publicized) basic budget total and double it." Even a cursory reading of newspaper articles about the Department of Defense will turn up major differences in statistics about its expenses. Some 30-40% of the defense budget is "black," meaning that these sections contain hidden expenditures for classified projects. There is no possible way to know what they include or whether their total amounts are accurate.
There are many reasons for this budgetary sleight-of-hand -- including a desire for secrecy on the part of the president, the secretary of defense, and the military-industrial complex -- but the chief one is that members of Congress, who profit enormously from defense jobs and pork-barrel projects in their districts, have a political interest in supporting the Department of Defense. In 1996, in an attempt to bring accounting standards within the executive branch somewhat closer to those of the civilian economy, Congress passed the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act. It required all federal agencies to hire outside auditors to review their books and release the results to the public. Neither the Department of Defense, nor the Department of Homeland Security has ever complied. Congress has complained, but not penalized either department for ignoring the law. The result is that all numbers released by the Pentagon should be regarded as suspect.
In discussing the fiscal 2008 defense budget, as released to the press on February 7, 2007, I have been guided by two experienced and reliable analysts: William D. Hartung of the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative and Fred Kaplan, defense correspondent for Slate.org. They agree that the Department of Defense requested $481.4 billion for salaries, operations (except in Iraq and Afghanistan), and equipment. They also agree on a figure of $141.7 billion for the "supplemental" budget to fight the "global war on terrorism" -- that is, the two on-going wars that the general public may think are actually covered by the basic Pentagon budget. The Department of Defense also asked for an extra $93.4 billion to pay for hitherto unmentioned war costs in the remainder of 2007 and, most creatively, an additional "allowance" (a new term in defense budget documents) of $50 billion to be charged to fiscal year 2009. This comes to a total spending request by the Department of Defense of $766.5 billion.
But there is much more. In an attempt to disguise the true size of the American military empire, the government has long hidden major military-related expenditures in departments other than Defense. For example, $23.4 billion for the Department of Energy goes toward developing and maintaining nuclear warheads; and $25.3 billion in the Department of State budget is spent on foreign military assistance (primarily for Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Republic, Egypt, and Pakistan). Another $1.03 billion outside the official Department of Defense budget is now needed for recruitment and reenlistment incentives for the overstretched U.S. military itself, up from a mere $174 million in 2003, the year the war in Iraq began. The Department of Veterans Affairs currently gets at least $75.7 billion, 50% of which goes for the long-term care of the grievously injured among the at least 28,870 soldiers so far wounded in Iraq and another 1,708 in Afghanistan. The amount is universally derided as inadequate. Another $46.4 billion goes to the Department of Homeland Security.
Missing as well from this compilation is $1.9 billion to the Department of Justice for the paramilitary activities of the FBI; $38.5 billion to the Department of the Treasury for the Military Retirement Fund; $7.6 billion for the military-related activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and well over $200 billion in interest for past debt-financed defense outlays. This brings U.S. spending for its military establishment during the current fiscal year (2008), conservatively calculated, to at least $1.1 trillion.
Military Keynesianism
Such expenditures are not only morally obscene, they are fiscally unsustainable. Many neoconservatives and poorly informed patriotic Americans believe that, even though our defense budget is huge, we can afford it because we are the richest country on Earth. Unfortunately, that statement is no longer true. The world's richest political entity, according to the CIA's "World Factbook," is the European Union. The EU's 2006 GDP (gross domestic product -- all goods and services produced domestically) was estimated to be slightly larger than that of the U.S. However, China's 2006 GDP was only slightly smaller than that of the U.S., and Japan was the world's fourth richest nation.
A more telling comparison that reveals just how much worse we're doing can be found among the "current accounts" of various nations. The current account measures the net trade surplus or deficit of a country plus cross-border payments of interest, royalties, dividends, capital gains, foreign aid, and other income. For example, in order for Japan to manufacture anything, it must import all required raw materials. Even after this incredible expense is met, it still has an $88 billion per year trade surplus with the United States and enjoys the world's second highest current account balance. (China is number one.) The United States, by contrast, is number 163 -- dead last on the list, worse than countries like Australia and the United Kingdom that also have large trade deficits. Its 2006 current account deficit was $811.5 billion; second worst was Spain at $106.4 billion. This is what is unsustainable.
It's not just that our tastes for foreign goods, including imported oil, vastly exceed our ability to pay for them. We are financing them through massive borrowing. On November 7, 2007, the U.S. Treasury announced that the national debt had breached $9 trillion for the first time ever. This was just five weeks after Congress raised the so-called debt ceiling to $9.815 trillion. If you begin in 1789, at the moment the Constitution became the supreme law of the land, the debt accumulated by the federal government did not top $1 trillion until 1981. When George Bush became president in January 2001, it stood at approximately $5.7 trillion. Since then, it has increased by 45%. This huge debt can be largely explained by our defense expenditures in comparison with the rest of the world.
The world's top 10 military spenders and the approximate amounts each country currently budgets for its military establishment are:
1. United States (FY08 budget), $623 billion
2. China (2004), $65 billion
3. Russia, $50 billion
4. France (2005), $45 billion
5. Japan (2007), $41.75 billion
6. Germany (2003), $35.1 billion
7. Italy (2003), $28.2 billion
8. South Korea (2003), $21.1 billion
9. India (2005 est.), $19 billion
10. Saudi Arabia (2005 est.), $18 billion
World total military expenditures (2004 est.), $1,100 billion
World total (minus the United States), $500 billion
Our excessive military expenditures did not occur over just a few short years or simply because of the Bush administration's policies. They have been going on for a very long time in accordance with a superficially plausible ideology and have now become entrenched in our democratic political system where they are starting to wreak havoc. This ideology I call "military Keynesianism" -- the determination to maintain a permanent war economy and to treat military output as an ordinary economic product, even though it makes no contribution to either production or consumption.
This ideology goes back to the first years of the Cold War. During the late 1940s, the U.S. was haunted by economic anxieties. The Great Depression of the 1930s had been overcome only by the war production boom of World War II. With peace and demobilization, there was a pervasive fear that the Depression would return. During 1949, alarmed by the Soviet Union's detonation of an atomic bomb, the looming communist victory in the Chinese civil war, a domestic recession, and the lowering of the Iron Curtain around the USSR's European satellites, the U.S. sought to draft basic strategy for the emerging cold war. The result was the militaristic National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) drafted under the supervision of Paul Nitze, then head of the Policy Planning Staff in the State Department. Dated April 14, 1950, and signed by President Harry S. Truman on September 30, 1950, it laid out the basic public economic policies that the United States pursues to the present day.
In its conclusions, NSC-68 asserted: "One of the most significant lessons of our World War II experience was that the American economy, when it operates at a level approaching full efficiency, can provide enormous resources for purposes other than civilian consumption while simultaneously providing a high standard of living."
With this understanding, American strategists began to build up a massive munitions industry, both to counter the military might of the Soviet Union (which they consistently overstated) and also to maintain full employment as well as ward off a possible return of the Depression. The result was that, under Pentagon leadership, entire new industries were created to manufacture large aircraft, nuclear-powered submarines, nuclear warheads, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and surveillance and communications satellites. This led to what President Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address of February 6, 1961: "The conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience" -- that is, the military-industrial complex.
By 1990, the value of the weapons, equipment, and factories devoted to the Department of Defense was 83% of the value of all plants and equipment in American manufacturing. From 1947 to 1990, the combined U.S. military budgets amounted to $8.7 trillion. Even though the Soviet Union no longer exists, U.S. reliance on military Keynesianism has, if anything, ratcheted up, thanks to the massive vested interests that have become entrenched around the military establishment. Over time, a commitment to both guns and butter has proven an unstable configuration. Military industries crowd out the civilian economy and lead to severe economic weaknesses. Devotion to military Keynesianism is, in fact, a form of slow economic suicide.
On May 1, 2007, the Center for Economic and Policy Research of Washington, D.C., released a study prepared by the global forecasting company Global Insight on the long-term economic impact of increased military spending. Guided by economist Dean Baker, this research showed that, after an initial demand stimulus, by about the sixth year the effect of increased military spending turns negative. Needless to say, the U.S. economy has had to cope with growing defense spending for more than 60 years. He found that, after 10 years of higher defense spending, there would be 464,000 fewer jobs than in a baseline scenario that involved lower defense spending.
Baker concluded:
"It is often believed that wars and military spending increases are good for the economy. In fact, most economic models show that military spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment."
These are only some of the many deleterious effects of military Keynesianism.
Hollowing Out the American Economy
It was believed that the U.S. could afford both a massive military establishment and a high standard of living, and that it needed both to maintain full employment. But it did not work out that way. By the 1960s, it was becoming apparent that turning over the nation's largest manufacturing enterprises to the Department of Defense and producing goods without any investment or consumption value was starting to crowd out civilian economic activities. The historian Thomas E. Woods, Jr., observes that, during the 1950s and 1960s, between one-third and two-thirds of all American research talent was siphoned off into the military sector. It is, of course, impossible to know what innovations never appeared as a result of this diversion of resources and brainpower into the service of the military, but it was during the 1960s that we first began to notice Japan was outpacing us in the design and quality of a range of consumer goods, including household electronics and automobiles.
Nuclear weapons furnish a striking illustration of these anomalies. Between the 1940s and 1996, the United States spent at least $5.8 trillion on the development, testing, and construction of nuclear bombs. By 1967, the peak year of its nuclear stockpile, the United States possessed some 32,500 deliverable atomic and hydrogen bombs, none of which, thankfully, was ever used. They perfectly illustrate the Keynesian principle that the government can provide make-work jobs to keep people employed. Nuclear weapons were not just America's secret weapon, but also its secret economic weapon. As of 2006, we still had 9,960 of them. There is today no sane use for them, while the trillions spent on them could have been used to solve the problems of social security and health care, quality education and access to higher education for all, not to speak of the retention of highly skilled jobs within the American economy.
The pioneer in analyzing what has been lost as a result of military Keynesianism was the late Seymour Melman (1917-2004), a professor of industrial engineering and operations research at Columbia University. His 1970 book, Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War, was a prescient analysis of the unintended consequences of the American preoccupation with its armed forces and their weaponry since the onset of the Cold War. Melman wrote (pp. 2-3):
"From 1946 to 1969, the United States government spent over $1,000 billion on the military, more than half of this under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations -- the period during which the [Pentagon-dominated] state management was established as a formal institution. This sum of staggering size (try to visualize a billion of something) does not express the cost of the military establishment to the nation as a whole. The true cost is measured by what has been foregone, by the accumulated deterioration in many facets of life by the inability to alleviate human wretchedness of long duration."
In an important exegesis on Melman's relevance to the current American economic situation, Thomas Woods writes:
"According to the U.S. Department of Defense, during the four decades from 1947 through 1987 it used (in 1982 dollars) $7.62 trillion in capital resources. In 1985, the Department of Commerce estimated the value of the nation's plant and equipment, and infrastructure, at just over $7.29 trillion. In other words, the amount spent over that period could have doubled the American capital stock or modernized and replaced its existing stock."
The fact that we did not modernize or replace our capital assets is one of the main reasons why, by the turn of the twenty-first century, our manufacturing base had all but evaporated. Machine tools -- an industry on which Melman was an authority -- are a particularly important symptom. In November 1968, a five-year inventory disclosed (p. 186) "that 64 percent of the metalworking machine tools used in U.S. industry were ten years old or older. The age of this industrial equipment (drills, lathes, etc.) marks the United States' machine tool stock as the oldest among all major industrial nations, and it marks the continuation of a deterioration process that began with the end of the Second World War. This deterioration at the base of the industrial system certifies to the continuous debilitating and depleting effect that the military use of capital and research and development talent has had on American industry."
Nothing has been done in the period since 1968 to reverse these trends and it shows today in our massive imports of equipment -- from medical machines like proton accelerators for radiological therapy (made primarily in Belgium, Germany, and Japan) to cars and trucks.
Our short tenure as the world's "lone superpower" has come to an end. As Harvard economics professor Benjamin Friedman has written:
"Again and again it has always been the world's leading lending country that has been the premier country in terms of political influence, diplomatic influence, and cultural influence. It's no accident that we took over the role from the British at the same time that we took over… the job of being the world's leading lending country. Today we are no longer the world's leading lending country. In fact we are now the world's biggest debtor country, and we are continuing to wield influence on the basis of military prowess alone."
Some of the damage done can never be rectified. There are, however, some steps that this country urgently needs to take. These include reversing Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for the wealthy, beginning to liquidate our global empire of over 800 military bases, cutting from the defense budget all projects that bear no relationship to the national security of the United States, and ceasing to use the defense budget as a Keynesian jobs program. If we do these things we have a chance of squeaking by. If we don't, we face probable national insolvency and a long depression.
[Note: For those interested, click here to view a clip from a new film, "Chalmers Johnson on American Hegemony," in Cinema Libre Studios' Speaking Freely series in which he discusses "military Keynesianism" and imperial bankruptcy.]
Do Israeli leaders have stones where their hearts should be? Are they tested for an absence of empathy and compassion before they are allowed to take office? Is there an empty void in place of their conscience? There must be, else how do they get to sleep at night? How do they bear looking at their own faces in the mirror?
Take a long hard look at Gaza, which Israel has deliberately and systematically turned into the most hellish place on earth, and you’ll understand that these are valid questions.
Israelis like to believe they are an evolved people and, indeed, their intellectual capabilities are sterling. They are also a people who have known extreme suffering, extreme hardship and the brand of loneliness that only the homeless can feel. But it seems their collective memory is short, else how on earth can they bear to keep silent about the terrible things being done to a frightened, poor, hungry people in their name?
Fresh from an orgy of grandiose peace promises and reassuring photo-ops with Mahmoud Abbas doing his return of the long-lost-brother act, Israel wasted no time in going on the rampage. It wasn’t enough to assault Gaza militarily resulting in over 30 deaths in just a few days. They have now sealed the open-air virtual prison and blockaded imports of fuel, medicines and even food.
As we stuff ourselves with takeaways in our heated living rooms or watch our favorite program on our posh Plasma televisions or head off for the mall with bulging wallets, let’s take just a moment to imagine what life must be like for the 1.5 million residents of Gaza.
The BBC five-day weather forecast for Gaza puts nighttime temperatures at 4 to 8 degrees Celsius with sunset at around 5 p.m. each day. Just imagine long evenings in the dark and the cold with elderly parents or young children with no means of cooking a warm meal. Perhaps, you’re thirsty so you put a glass under the tap and nothing comes out because without electricity the pumps don’t function. Wouldn’t most of us consider such an existence torture?
Imagine having a sick family member who requires regular insulin injections for diabetes but when you go to the pharmacy, there is none. Perhaps you’re a proud father or mother of a newborn who needs to spend the first weeks of life inside an incubator, but all the doctors can do is shrug their shoulders and say “there’s no electricity.” Tragically this isn’t empty speculation. Already, five patients have died in Gaza hospitals simply due to its lack.
Imagine how helpless and despairing you would feel trapped in that hell with no way of getting away from it; no place to escape from Israel’s bombs; no future; no hope.
Israel is even preventing humanitarian aid from getting through; aid which keeps 80 percent of Gaza residents alive. UN officials have protested but is anyone in Israel listening?
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said he was concerned about Israel’s closure of crossing points used to deliver humanitarian assistance.
John Dugard, the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur slammed Israel for targeting Gaza’s Ministry of Interior and the consequent loss of innocent life and for its policy of collective punishment, which he says violates the Fourth Geneva Convention.
But when has Israel ever cared about its responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions? Throughout its history as a state, it has shown complete disregard for UN Security Council resolutions and international law. It operates purely out of self-interest on the basis of “might is right.” It has no moral compass when it comes to making Palestinian lives as miserable as possible. As an entity it knows no shame. All its crimes are hidden undercover of the magic word “security.”
Gideon Levy, a journalist with the Israeli daily Haaretz appears to understand this. In a recent opinion piece he writes: “Here, we have the yardstick for security success: the number of Palestinians killed. As in the most primeval wars, the heads of the defense establishment are boasting about the number of people Israel has killed. Their job is to ensure protection for the residents of the state. And, as we know, the residents of the ‘Gaza perimeter’ are not receiving this protection.
“So the death toll has become the measure of their success... Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin briefed the Cabinet last week about the ‘achievements’ of his organization: 810 Palestinians killed during the past two years....”
There are many just and empathetic Israelis like Levy but, unfortunately, they never make it into the Cabinet nor do they manage to make serious inroads into the “I’m alright Jack” apathy displayed by the majority of Israelis vis-Ã -vis their Palestinian neighbors.
Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who lives in Damascus, has made an emotional appeal to Mahmoud Abbas and leaders of the Arab world. He asks them to put aside differences and to “stand with us in pride and honor”. In particular, he wants Egypt to supply fuel via the Rafah crossing, which it controls. Thus far, Egypt, bound and gagged by its treaties and alliances, has not responded.
After earlier accusing Hamas of thwarting national aspirations, Mahmoud Abbas has finally spoken up. He has called on Israel to immediate end the blockade and to allow the entry of fuel to facilitate the lives of the innocent. He has further called for a ‘special’ Arab League meeting and warns he may put the issue before the UN Security Council.
Without our humanity we are nothing. Those who thrust fear, hunger and pain onto innocent people or allow such atrocities to happen should evaluate their place in the brotherhood of mankind as well as their understanding of their own religion because no religion on earth tolerates such callous practices.
This is my plea to decent people everywhere. Make your voices heard. Let them ring out from the rooftops. Take up your pens; open your laptops and send Israel a clear message: “This is not acceptable... This is not acceptable... This is not acceptable”.
Linda S. Heard is a British editor, journalist and columnist currently based in Cairo where she is a correspondent for the Saudi daily Arab News. She can be reached at sierra12th@yahoo.co.uk.
The security establishment was quick on Monday to boast of the success of its tactic of escalation against Gaza: Look, the number of Qassams declined. By the time these lines are published, the security establishment may spin another logical axiom: Since we renewed the supply of diesel fuel on a one-time basis, the Palestinians have gone back to firing Qassams. The conclusion: Continue the escalation. The logic of escalation is the middle name of the current defense minister, Ehud Barak, and many Israelis are adopting it.
Barak was prime minister in September 2000, when the Israel Defense Forces responded with escalation to popular demonstrations against the Israeli occupier and to the throwing of stones: lethal fire against civilians, among them many children. Not surprisingly, the Palestinians did not understand the lesson and turned to escalation tactics of their own. That is how we reached the point where we are now - homemade rockets of all kinds, which become even developed, the more Israel escalates its punishment measures in response to them.
Books, articles and one or two films have have already discussed, albeit tardily, the foolishness of the tactic of escalation. But that does not matter to those who support the application of more and more pressure on the 1.5 million residents of the Strip. This shows that they - like their defense minister and the rest of the political leadership - are suffering from four failings: amnesia, shortsightedness, disorientation and learning disabilities.
Amnesia allows exponents of this position to ponder the ostensibly welcome results of the escalation for a period of time ranging from days to months. Israelis forget the deadly Israeli attack that preceded the last Qassam barrage. And because they do not connect today's Qassams to those killed at the beginning of the intifada, that is, to the steps of escalation that the army took seven years ago, they cannot imagine what the result will be of the interruption to the water supply due to the power cuts; the collapse of the sewerage system; the insult inherent in dealing only with food and the cold. Because of amnesia, Israelis do not think about the future: about the Palestinian, all-Muslim, all-Arab attitudes and positions that are being formulated at this very moment, which will end up shattering any temporary calm.
The shortsightedness of those who support escalation allows them to watch television broadcasts from Gaza - of children crying and spokesmen pleading or raging - and feel these are signs that the current escalation is working. They do not see beyond the screen. They do not see the mutual help, the resourcefulness and the humor people are showing, the stubborness and the political and popular pressure on their Egyptian neighbor.
Disorientation causes supporters of escalation to believe that Gaza is really a separate geographic and demographic region, that it does not not belong, that the fate of its inhabitants means nothing to Palestinians in other areas. Disorientation causes Israelis to relate to the Green Line and treat it as sacred only when Palestinians cross it and strike at them. They forget that they - that is, we Israelis - are crossing the Green Line at any given moment: with settlements and gunfire and separate roads, shelling and bombardment and military orders. And this began long before any Palestinians learned how to manufacture Qassams.
It all connects to learning disabilities. The escalation, its proponents are convinced, will lead to popular pressure on the Hamas government. But the Palestinians do not forget that various forms of siege and closure, economic attrition, land expropriation and foot-dragging in negotiations, are testimony to the failure of the Palestinian Authority and its elected president, Mahmoud Abbas, much more than they are to the failure of Hamas.
Those who champion escalation ignore the fact that hermetic closure of all crossings into Gaza reminds the world what it loves to forget: Israel is the occupier. The aggressor. The learning disabled and the short-sighted do not see the moral - and not just security - bankruptcy of the escalation policy. Others will do that in their place.
One Day=720 Million Dollars is a video just put out by the American Friend's Service Committee.
Please forward this video to others. Please keep up action to end this ILLEGAL war.
About this video: Visit http://www.afsc.org/cost to tell Congress how you want your tax dollars spent. The Iraq war has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of U.S. military personnel. It is also costing $720 Million dollars each day - dollars that could be spent in much more constructive ways. It is time to DEFUND the war and RE-FUND human needs in the U.S. and Iraq. Sign our petition at http://www.afsc.org/cost - and send this video to ten friends.
(Washington, DC - 1/22/08) -- The Muslim Public Affairs Council announced today that it will hold an interfaith vigil for the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip, who are suffering from collective punishment by Israel's decision on January 17 to cutoff fuel supplies, which has worsened an already critical humanitarian crisis.
WHAT: Interfaith Vigil for Gaza Strip Victims
WHEN: Sunday, January 27 at 6pm
WHERE: Islamic Center of Southern California
WHO: Rev. Dr. Gwynne Guib
Rabbi Steven Jacobs
Dr. Maher Hathout
WHO:MPAC echoes the statement issued yesterday by the United Nations, which criticized Israel for the developments in Gaza stressing that while the Palestinian rocket attacks are wrong, Israel's response "cannot be a retaliation."
Israel closed all crossings into Gaza last week, preventing the delivery of vital humanitarian supplies as well as fuel to the Gaza power station. This had international aid workers warning of a crisis if necessary goods were not delivered in time. As of today, however, Israel is allowing the transfer of limited quantities of fuel, medical, and food supplies to Gaza. This move follows mounting international pressure and criticism of Israel’s harsh policies to guarantee its security at the expense of Palestinian suffering.
"It's the mothers of Gaza who are suffering, not the militants, in the dark," John Ging, Director of the U.N.'s Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, said yesterday.Ging warned that UNRWA would be forced to stop food distribution to hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents within days if the lockdown continues.
The Gaza Strip suffers from skyrocketing unemployment and poverty, and lacks medicine, fuel, electricity, food and other essential commodities. It is virtually cut off from the rest of the world.
The only doctrine that can mitigate Israel's occupation and provide a path for Palestinians and Israelis to emerge from this bloody conflict is international humanitarian law.
The United States should wield its influence to compel Israel to agree to an immediate end to its occupation without any preconditions and without holding any more Palestinian lives hostage to a final-status solution yet to be negotiated. Without such action, the integrity of President Bush's recent pledge to reach a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians is subject to great international discredit.
Founded in 1988, the Muslim Public Affairs Council is an American institution which informs and shapes public opinion and policy by serving as a trusted resource to decision makers in government, media and policy institutions. MPAC is also committed to developing leaders with the purpose of enhancing the political and civic participation of Muslim Americans.
If eight-year-old Samer lived in England, he would be considered quite ill. As he has kidney failure and is waiting for a transplant he needs to have regular dialysis treatment. But as he is living in the Gaza Strip, his situation is desperate.
Because of the Israeli blockade on Gaza, Samer has not been able to travel to hospital for his treatment for weeks, and his condition is deteriorating by the day. His young cousin, Bassam Harara who had the same disease, died of kidney failure on November 6 last year. His parents fear that it is just a matter of time before he dies too.
Samer's mother said: "Bassam asked me to watch over Samer. He used to come always to visit him. Since Bassam's death I cannot sleep at night. I stay up to check on my son. They won't allow him to leave the Gaza Strip. We are all exhausted and giving up hope that the leaders on either side care."
There are hundreds of patients in Gaza in a similar predicament. People with conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer are in increasing danger of death because the hospitals have run out medicines and they are banned from leaving Gaza by the Israeli blockade.
Palestinian health services report that the medical situation in the Gaza Strip is approaching catastrophe.
"Many patients have died already. But many more will die in the next few days as their conditions deteriorates" one doctor said.
There are currently about 450 cancer patients in Gaza; 400 suffering from kidney failure and 450 with heart problems. Between 600-700 patients in Gaza require monthly travel for treatment and 250-300 medical cases require urgent treatment.
Caritas Jerusalem, which has been working with the sick and needy in the region for more than 40 years has issued an appeal to readers asking them to to write to politicians on behalf of these innocent victims.
Dear Senator Boxer, Above there was a question asking me what subject matter I was writing to you about. I chose "civil rights" rather than the option "Middle East" because what is happening to those living in Gaza is a matter of civil rights, of INTERNATIONAL LAW being violated, and in this case, with a blind eye being turned once again by our country. As you and others in Congress remain silent on the siege of Gaza, I am wondering why it is that nothing is being done to address Israel's policies towards Gaza when they violate our OWN values as a nation. With the electricity being turned off and fuel supplies cut, medicines not allowed in, patients needing care not allowed out-72 dead thus far who were denied exit, I ask you, why are you not crying out that the country we are giving more aid to than all other countries combined is committing genocide on the Palestinians? Israel's brutal tactics will NOT work to bring peace, they will only work to create more armed resistance, a HUMAN reaction. Let it be said quite clearly, I am 100% against violence of ANY sort, please make that clear, of ANY sort, but human nature is to fight back. Gaza has been under closure since June. Do you have ANY idea what this means to the people living there? I am a Christian Senator Boxer and I plea with you both as a Christian and an American, PLEASE speak out against this because it is so morally wrong and goes against all that our country stands for, that ALL men are created equal and that ALL men are entitled the same rights under God and the law.
Thank you for your time Senator Boxer. I know you don't read your emails, but for whoever IS reading this, I send my blessings to her that she might find it in her heart to KNOW that collective punishment and genocide of a people, the Palestinians is NOT something our country should be turning a blind eye to.
