As many people may or may not know, Alison was in the area this week. She is a part of this organization, and several others;Â www.ifamericansknew.org
There are many things we could say about Alison, but the only thing I have ever taken from her was that she is a non-partisan, un-bias journalist. She is the model employee of the ‘Fourth Estate’
I watched her on Patty O’Lalley’s ‘100 Eyes’ show this past week. Alison is a seasoned journalist and had Pat in stitches, though I will give him props for bringing her on, and being in stitches, she had him in a tight corner begging for mommy to set him free.
I also attended Democratic Forum this past Friday to listen to her speak about the Israeli/Palestine issue. In about 45 minutes Alison covered every base. The horrific violence that the two parties inflict on each other and our almost brain dead media that has so much Israeli money shoved up their asses they can’t see straight.
I will say this, don’t care if you are Muslim, Jewish or Christian, killing children in the name of (your) God is not justifiable.
I think the most memorable moment in Alison’s speech was when she showed pictures of injured children from the conflict, and I looked across the room and saw grown men tearing up. As my friend attending the forum with me said last night about Alison’s presentation, “I experienced a Rapture – I saw an audience spellbound.”
What is amazing about Alison’s presentation is that she shows us what our aid to Israel is paying for, killing children, aproximately, $8 million PER DAY! And while we fight over spray and dog parks in SF, we supply the Israeli people $8 million a day to shoot children in the back, and other stuff. But Hey! We are getting a New Walmart! Maybe two!
The US spends more on Israel’s defense budget/military than do the Israelis – PER CAPITA – not just en grosse.
As American, and for that matter North American, energy independence increasingly becomes a reality over the next decade, it will be interesting to watch how that reality will change America’s attitude and policy towards Israel and the Middle East in general.
To the degree that new fracking technologies have greatly enhanced American and North American oil production, which in turn has enhanced our energy independence stature, it is fascinating how new technologies (regardless of whether you love them or hate them) can at times trump long standing policies and particular political realms of power.
I believe the real agent of change in American Middle East policy in the years to come will once again come primarily from oil, but in this time from a domestic reality and not a foreign one. But as this reality unfolds, regardless of the brutalities which can be proven or alleged against the State of Israel, it is also incumbent that in a part of the world, which has always been unstable and continues to be, that it is imperative we recognize the good in Israel and our relationship with them as well. The good is the pure reality that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East and in this age of the Arab Spring or Springs that is a quality which must be protected and promoted beyond religious consideration and as an example of the importance in developing a true middle class within a society in order to promote democratic principles throughout the Middle East, and this is the long term relevance of Israel to the Middle East and to American interests throughout the world.
The good is the pure reality that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East
Democracy? Is that what you call it?
Israel was originally instituted by the Europeans in the UN as a sort of “reservation” for the world’s Jews – a globally approved variation on Hitler’s final solution. It is still that and is supported as that concept in the form of a “client state” of the US – much like the reservations here – and not a freely formed democracy comprised of peoples’ indigenous to the area. A state imposed on the area by foreign powers – JUST LIKE the rest of that entire region.
There is a huge amount of info at the website of the organization with which Ms. Weir is associated – if you just have time to read something short, I’d recommend ‘Israel Deliberately Forgets Its History’ in the History section.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/about_us/whoweare.html
Poly 43, You are right, it is a Jewish State, but it is a State with a recognized religion (like many European democratic countries), which allows minority parties to exist and to be elected to the Knesset. In theory, absent the realities of the complete partitioning of the Palestinian enclaves into its own Palestinian State, it is conceivable that the Jewish population within Israel itself could be a plurality at best someday giving rise to a more viable democratic opposition (The irony is, absent the creation of a complete Palestinian State, population trends itself will make Israel overtime a more pluralistic and thus democratic country rather than a potential adversary to a new Palestinian State ; but that assumes gerrymandering does not destroy this potential reality, and since even our own country has issues with gerrymandering, then maybe we too are not a Republic with democratic overtones either?
Democratic realities are a fluid situation and relative to their comparisons. I personally would rather live in Israel than (then?) any other country in the Middle East, wouldn’t you? Is America a nation of democratic values when it has the Trail of Tears, the Wounded Knee Massacre, the internment of Japanese Americans, Abu Ghraib, or NSA surveillance procedures in its history books? Is the United Kingdom a nation of democratic values when Amnesty International challenges its treatment of IRA prisoners? Or is France a nation of democratic values when it outlaws the wearing of a hijab by its Muslim population?
All true democracies are constantly evolving and a crucial part of that evolution is to challenge what is wrong about your own or an other democratic nation. This is why Israel should be held accountable for its grievous acts, but as we begin to walk into a new geopolitical reality where our own energy independence licenses us with a new attitude towards the Middle East and our relationship with Israel, it is imperative that we do not promote bashing over challenging. For bashing will only encourage an anti-Sematic fervor, which destroys everything we as Americans have tried to do globally over the last 68 years in learning from the Holocaust and to promote the idea of tolerance throughout the world, which a “democratic” nation in an undemocratic part of the world can facilitate.
Is America a nation of democratic values when it has the Trail of Tears, the Wounded Knee Massacre, the internment of Japanese Americans, Abu Ghraib, or NSA surveillance procedures in its history books?
Winston. Our “history” books are a joke. You mention just a few of the atrocities, but you also left out the senseless fire bombings of Dresden and the loss of 350,000 civilian lives when we decimated Japan with nuclear weapons.
And while we fight over spray and dog parks in SF, we supply the Israeli people $8 million a day to shoot children in the back, and other stuff. But Hey! We are getting a New Walmart! Maybe two!
In a related issue, while the nation is falling apart in front of us, many are wondering who can stop the Denver Bronco’s as a dynasty if John Elway can sign Peyton Manning on as offensive coordinator when he retires as a player.
Poly, why is this always about sports with you? 🙂
Great site referenced above. Hours and hours of good reading ahead. The site also has a page of “must read” books. Eight in total. I went to the Siouxland Library website to see if they had any of them. ZERO is the number. All the authors show up as no shows also for any other works. Got several pages of hits for Glenn beck. Same for bill oreilly. Same for Ann coulter. Same for rush Limbaugh. Same for hannity.
On another note, I still enjoy the nfl. I would venture there are thousands in SF who can rattle off the top 12 offensive playmakers of all 32 teams. Probably half of them could not show you on a map where viet nam is without google earth.
We are what they want us to be. Uninformed on what matters, and informed on that that does not matter. Still my favorite book and favorite quote from that book.
If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.â€
― George Orwell, 1984
Israel is not a democracy. It is a brutal apartheid state with Jewish only roads built illegally in the West Bank. Israel defies all UN resolutions and is never punished. The settlers poison wells, kill livestock, attack children on their way to school, uproot and burn olive trees, throw maltov cocktails into cars of Palestinian families, regularly demolish Palestinian homes etc…I haven’t even gotten to the Nakba yet and the massacre of Deir Yasin, or to the Sabra and Shatila bloodbaths, or to the Qana massacres….NO, Israel is a perverted and cruel entity. Why do Arabs have to pay in so much blood for what Europeans did to other Europeans? When they finally fought back you called them terrorists….so what does that make you Winston? You support ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population….so what does that make you? A Nazi?
“There are many things we could say about Alison, but the only thing I have ever taken from her was that she is a non-partisan, un-bias journalist.”
That would actually be the last thing in a long list of falsehoods anyone with integrity could say about Weir. But she may be non-partison; she only cares about how many people she can convince to hate Israel. She doesn’t care if they are democrat or republican. She is all about the hatred.
If you don’t like Poly’s sports references, we could turn this mutha into a Ric Flair thread. Whoooooo!
Thanks Chris, amazingly enough, Alison backs up all of her research with Data, and she thinks any child dying, Jewish, Muslim or Christian is regrettable. She also points out the amazing bias towards Israel. Call it hatred, I call it the truth.