“World democracy”?Dont you think we’d better get one here first?

Honestly, I think that the US has lost so much credability, that it is probably time for us to , not lead, not follow, but, to get out of the way!

Other countries have more money, and, more power.

“Too weak, and if Hamas gets into the west bank, they then would fire missles and rockets into telAviv and the airport, etc. But just single miles away in distance.”

That’s simply an argument for not giving up the West Bank.  Israel’s government claims that it is not expanding settlements there, yet it continues to offer cash incentives for settlers to move there.

“When there is a single unified PA voice that recognizes Israel and they can have security between them, why it will happen.”

There was a single PA unified voice that recognized Israel, and all Israel did was stall the peace process.  Israel will have to be driven out of the West Bank, because they clearly do not want to give it up.

I detest religious fundamentalism and the use of suicide bombers.—Chris Hedges
........................
I, too, detest religious fundamentalism and suicide bombers. However, any exceptional act of self-sacrifice in our time is seen as “extreme” and fundamental. Thus, as Nara52 argues, if nonviolence claims the life of the protester, is he-she a fundamentalist? I, too, am against suicide bombers, but I try not to use the word “suicide”, because it often is or could be an act of self-sacrifice and, thus, a political act. We have secularized most acts of self-sacrifice ad nauseam and now can think only of suicide. “Suicide bombers” may be the result of our moral failure to witness ourselves as self-sacrifice, because if we are confronted by an extreme situation, the audience will call us “suicide”.

from By Big B, January 19 at 5:14 am:

“When the oil is gone, there will be peace. Without oil, the US won’t give two shits what goes on in the region. “

This is the “war for oil” theory. Please read “The Israel Lobby”. Mearsheimer and Walt show this thinking to be erroneous.

If it were not for Israel, the US very likely would have much more peaceful and profitable relations with the oil-producers of the Persian Gulf and with Arab and Muslim peoples in general. Invasion and conquest is much less cost-effective.

It is Israel’s lobby that forecloses this possibility, by keeping the US in a state of hostility with the countries which Israel regards as enemies — and therefore, increasingly, with the entire Muslim and Arab world, and indeed, much of rest of the world. This is because in countries without the benefit of the Israel lobby to guide their thinking, it’s obvious to everyone that Israel and the US are in the wrong and the Palestinians and Iran are in the right. It’s also obvious that the US gets objectively nothing out of this relationship, contributing to the widespread perception that Americans are stupid and religion-addled.

Israel has nothing whatsoever to offer the US, and yet through political manipulation has virtually isolated the US, so that Israel, the parasitic “ally”, is the only country where US Mideast polices are viewed favorably.

Do you really think that’s it’s just a coincidence that only Israel likes what the US under Bush has been doing in the Middle East? Just by chance, we keep doing whatever dear little Israel wants, with minor exceptions here and there?

I read about Palestine and I think:

“When will we use the tools we created to solve this kind of problem to solve this problem?”

This Palestine Problem is SCREAMING for the involvement of the UN!

When we talk about the criminality of Israeli and Hamas actions, we need to also speak about what Law they are violating and the one and only organization that is legitimately empowered to stop them -the United Nations.

Of course I know as well as anyone that the U.S. (and sometimes other Permanent Security Council Member States) prevents the UN from acting on this situation (and Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia, and Rwanda, and, and, and…) in the manner that the General Assembly (the Majority of the People of the World) would wish.

Of course I know that the UN has been corrupted by this interruption in its intended purpose and this hamstringing of its just powers.

Of course I know that we have just endured an Interval of at least eight, and really nearly thirty, years of propaganda against and neglect of the UN. This time could be said to begin with G.W. Bush’s rejection of International Law after (but in spirit, before) 11 September 2001. But it could also be said to begin as long ago as rise of Reagan, or the end of the Vietnam “War”, or the end of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, or even the end of the Kruschev period and the recession and social upheavals of ‘68 and beyond- effectively ending the “warm” parts of the Cold War.

One could even point to the ‘67 war in the Middle East -and the rejection of many Laws by all beligerents and all supportive Allies in that conflict- if one wanted to tie this all to the Palestine Problem.

The point is that we all are well aware of the many problems and issues that the UN struggles with.

But we need to be equally aware of where the source of these difficulties lives and how easily they can be remitted at that source.

What if Barack Hussein Obama -he of the African and European heritage, he with the African and Arab names, he with his Descendent-of-Slaves wife, and he the student of Constitutional Law- were to rise to that podium tomorrow and call for the reinvigoration of the UN and a total U.S. commitment to International Law? What if he pledged to seek UN legitimacy for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan? What if he pledged to remove our military forces from those places if such legitimacy was not forthcoming? What if he called on all other nations -especially allies like the State of Israel- to do the same? What if he called for a reorganization of the UN to evolve it from a tool of the Cold War into a machine for World Democracy?

What if?

Sure this won’t happen. But it remains true that if it did, if he did, then things would change -in Palestine and throughout the World- almost overnight.

We the People of the United States of America, we are the problem, we are the source of the corruption and decay, the war and the violence.

We are responsible for our Government whether we wish to be or not. And our Government is the chief flaunter of Law and destroyer of Peace in the World whether we wish this were so or not.

When will we give up on trying to use our great Power to forge a Pax Americana, a benevolent Empire ruled by us alone?

When will we abandon this futile struggle and FINALLY use our Power in the only way really left to us?

When will we become the example of democracy and peace and Law that we present ourselves as?

When will we see the task ahead of us and -finally- begin to Work?

The nonviolent struggle Mahatma Gandhi followed against the brutal British empire was much more than mere pacifism.  Gandhi advocated a struggle for transforming both the oppressor and the oppressed.  He did not hesitate to call off protests, even when they are at the cusp of success, if his followers failed to adhere to the strictly non-violent means.  The end result is a transformed society.  Critics point to the bloodletting that occurred during the partition of India to cast doubts about Gandhi.  But what they ignore is that Bengal, where Gandhi went during these cathartic times, was absolutely peaceful.  Sadly, we had only one Gandhi for the entire nation of more than 300 million at that time.

It is easy to respond to seemingly intractable conflicts with violence.  Peaceful struggle is never easy.  It requires enormous patience and commitment.  It may take years before we see any changes.  The personal cost is also heavy.  One must be prepared to face death or bodily harm, not to mention humiliation and ridicule.  But the changes that finally result are uplifting, permanent, and devoid of resentment.  Everybody wins.

Take for example the struggle for voluntary land redistribution efforts of Vinoba Bhave and his followers.  In 1968, 42 landless women and children were burnt alive by the landlords in Thanjavur District of Tamil Nadu, India, following a wage-dispute.  Jagannathan and Krishnammal, following the examples of Mahatma Gandhi and Bhave, organized peaceful nonviolent struggle against the landlords.  Initially the landlords refused to even sit with the landless laborers.  But, after 40 years of struggle, the descendants of the landlords who perpetrated the brutal atrocity in the 60’s, were transformed to the extent they expressed profound regret for the actions of their parents and voluntarily redistributed part of their land holdings to the poor.  A violent struggle may have given quick result, but there is no guarantee that the gains will not be reversed through counter violence.  (Jagannathan and Krishnammal were awarded the alternate Nobel prize for 2008.)

The goal of peaceful struggle, which Gandhi called Satyagraha, is not to defeat an opponent, but to transform the opponent.  In the end, the oppressor becomes one with the oppressed. 

Having endured long years of violence, it is difficult for Palestinians to eschew violence and adopt Gandhian methods against the Israeli oppressors.  This does not mean advocates of peaceful protest are self-delusional.  In this day of internet, independent media, instant world-wide communication, nonviolent protest from the grieving Palestinian populace will be much more powerful in outraging the conscience of even the American apologists of Israeli oppression.  They have tried violence for 60 years, where did it get them?  More than 1000 lives have been lost in a matter a few weeks, to the cowardly bombardment by the IDF.  Are they any closer to justice than a couple of months ago?  What if Hamas went on a mass protest at border crossing like the ones organized by Gandhi against the British?  If IDF killed 1000 unarmed Palestinians protesting at checkpoints and border crossings, what would the world opinion be?  If Hamas organized waves of protesters to burn ID cards issued by IDF and march through checkpoints without showing papers, what would IDF do?  Would they shoot them dead? 

I have a lot of respect for Hedges.  He is a rare kind of journalist who wishes to tell the truth and is outraged when others in his profession do not.  But I would like to respectfully disagree with Hedges that advocating “moral suasion and nonviolence” to the grieving families in Gaza or Iraq or Afghanistan is delusional.

Israel is a sick country. I am nauseated by its sickness.

Flow:

While your comments are well-taken, you say “Are you suggesting that the moral philosophy espoused and demonstrated by Jesus of Nazareth is essentially composed of the same principles as those embodied in the Buddhist wisdom teachings? and Taoism? and the other mystical traditions of the East? Such as the Hindu tradition; the tradition which formed the inspirational basis and informed the vision of the Great Soul Gandhi?”

In fact, Gandhi’s beliefs were as informed by Jesus and Christianity as they were by Hinduism.  He makes this clear in many of his writings, not least the most apropos book re this thread: “For Pacifists.”

Peace.

@eileen fleming

Are you suggesting that the moral philosophy espoused and demonstrated by Jesus of Nazareth is essentially composed of the same principles as those embodied in the Buddhist wisdom teachings? and Taoism? and the other mystical traditions of the East? Such as the Hindu tradition; the tradition which formed the inspirational basis and informed the vision of the Great Soul Gandhi?

Is it inaccurate to assert that the Greek term/title Khristós, from which we derive the english term Christ, instead of being Jesus’ last name, actually refers to any individual that has accomplished the supreme and sublime alchemical transformation? the great magnum opus? A term meaning the anointed one, the one intimately aware of their own interior essence, the one who genuinely ‘knows their self’. In other words, any individual that has achieved “metanoia” (the Greek translation of the Aramaic word used by Jesus (Yoshua) to refer to the psychological state required to enter the ‘kingdom of the Father’? And that this transformation, besides revealing the gates to Heaven also preserves the soul, and dispels ignorance and its folly? That is, produces “salvation” (i.e. preservation, to be soaked in salt; sal=salt; the method used to preserve meat (substance) prior to the days of refrigeration) and thus to liberate the soul from the very condition that defines this temporal existence — mortality! (death—the punishment for “the fall” or “original sin” and the consequence of the banishment from Eden in the biblical myth of creation).  Thus establishing immortality (i.e. im-mortality — without death — liberation from the repeated round of birth-death? Is this what you are suggesting or advocating?

If so, I highly recommend the insightful essay by Thomas Moore, (author of Care of the Soul : A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life) examining the subject of ‘metanoia’ found here, and/or Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh. And finally, for a splendid survey of the human condition, replete with seering wisdom concerning the “cause” of war, see Living with the Devil by Stephen Stephen Batchelor. Cheers.

eileen:

Though I don’t tend to agree with you much of the time, I agree with your entire 1/19 post - with one exception.  You say, “When JC said: ‘Pick up your cross and follow me’ everyone THEN understood he was issuing a POLITICAL statement…”

This is a common error.  When read in context, Jesus’ statements in Matthew 10 and 16 are clearly NOT political, but spiritual.  Keep in mind that Jesus made it clear that Jews were to “Render to Caesar those things that are Caesar’s, and render to God those things that are God’s.”  Caesar’s “things” would have included taxes and the like - i.e., the “politico-economic” aspects of life.  God’s “things” were spiritual in nature.

You add that “What got JC crucified was disturbing the status quo of the Roman Empire…by teaching the subversive concept that God preferred the humble sinner, the poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under the Roman Empire…above the elite and arrogant.”

Not wholly.  (Pun intended.)  Jesus could not be put to death for his offenses to the Temple Priests, scribes, etc.  He could only be put to death by the Romans for breaking ROMAN law.  That is why the Temple Priests had to convince Pilate that Jesus’ offense was “claiming to be a king,” when “there is only one king, and that is Caesar.”  In this regard, it was not Jesus’ “blasphemy” at the Sanhedrin that got Him killed, it was His comment to Pilate that He WAS a king (even if His kingdom was “not of this world”).

Peace.

re:  Dr Wu

The reason it cannot happen yet, is that the PM in the WestBank cannot guarantee a rent contract.  Too weak, and if Hamas gets into the west bank, they then would fire missles and rockets into telAviv and the airport, etc. But just single miles away in distance.

When there is a single unified PA voice that recognizes Israel and they can have security between them, why it will happen.

The more I learn about this problem in the middle east I realize killing more people is not the answer. Chris Hedges tries to do this with every column and I do appreciate the POV. The question really becomes when do we stop killing and actually solve the problems? Problems for Palestinians, for Israelis and for the rest of the world watching.

Hedges arrives at power truths that he doesn’t like, and therefore justifies them with conservative truth and truthers.  But the historical power situation is quite simple; it is merely obscured and obfuscated by Zionist and other truthers who do not wish to accept them.

Israel has been seizing the homes, land, resources and country ofthe Palestinians, and now does it while proclaiming their goal of a two state solution.  This can only be done by terrorizing the Palestinian population by military and and polce vilence.

The only defense against Israeli violence is Palestinian violence.  This is especially so now that the Israeli power system is explicitly adopting a strategy of ‘calcuated power madness’ to kill masses of the Palestinian population to terrfy them. This was explicited justified by the Zionist NYTimes columnist Thomas Friedman, and in a news analysis today.

There is therefore two sides; the oppressor and the oppressed.  Since the oppressor is increasing its violence to undertake ethnic cleansing, the only defense of the Palesitians is the military-political defesne of Hamas.  Just as the only defense of Indians from American ethnic cleansing was military defense.

Hams states they have fiftenn thousand fighters.  But they need the tunnels to Egypt to get food, medicine and ammunition to continue their defense.  Otherwise the Israelis could re-establish their starvation blockade, supported by Bush-Obama, and debilitate the population to the point they could deport the survivors somewhere else.

So, if you are on the side of the Palestinians, you have to support their heroic military defense of the population against the enormous military might of US-Israel.  this can be done while opposing some of their political positions, notably their position on women.

Anything else is an evasion at best, or an attempt to weaken the Palestinians at worse.  The Palestinians are conducted a national liberation struggle against enormous odds, and, as Franz Fanon argued in THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH, this liberation struggle is always a violent one.  And in violent struggles, the moral choice is not between the good and bad, but between the bad and worse.

OK, say you believe that Hamas is no good…Wouldn’t it make sense for Hamas enemies—America and Israel, to defang Hamas by supporting the moderate Palestinians? (i.e Fatah and Mr. Abbas).

Israel can do this by removing the settlers from the West Bank, remove the Gaza blockade,  invest in rebuilding and guaranteeing an Independent Palestinian state.

Why doesn’t this happen?

By skmacksk, January 19 at 9:30 am
•  “Mr. Hedges always navigates onto the dangerous shoals of “Theology,” there only to beach himself.”
I’ve never heard/read it said better!! Hedges DOES always navigate in this dangerous direction, and beaching himself is always the best of his outcomes. Sometimes he just finds himself in a position of treading water and flailing about. Like in this piece.

It’s unfortunate, because he’s certainly not a stupid man. It’s just that he’s stuck in a “Theological” rabbit hole, with an extremely limited view of the rest of the world.

You’re right Fadel, it IS amazing, and the opening paragraph says it all.

Reinhold Niebuhr provided a christian rational to US presidents for the dirty work of maintaining the empire in the post WW11 era.  Basically he advised them to do what they had to do to maintain the empire without worrying about any moral issues involved.  It goes without saying that non-violence wasn’t on his list of virtues.

I can only wonder about the purpose,rhetorical or otherwise,of Mr. Hedges quoting of Reinhold Niebuhr. Except to reify his credentials as a hardheaded adherent of “Christian Realism” or a variant of same. Mr. Hedges moral passion and intellectual clarity are here evident, but the quotation of a tired cold warrior is simply out of place.Unless he wishes to place himself clearly in the camp of The American Exceptionalists: then he is merely a dissident in the coterie of the American Foreign Policy Establishment. Niebuhr and his political ally Arthur Schlesinger Jr. held sway over the “Vital Center” and granted status as part of their largesse,an index of their stunted political and moral vision.
Mr. Hedges always navigates onto the dangerous shoals of “Theology,” there only to beach himself.

“I do not like Hamas. I detest religious fundamentalism and the use of suicide bombers. I find the group’s anti-Semitism and ruthless silencing of internal Palestinian opponents repugnant.”
==========================================
I am amazed by how Chris Hedges is capable of lofty expressions of support for and sympathy with the legitimate struggle of the Palestinians, yet, at the same time, like this case, he is capable of cheap propaganda that matches the worst of the worst Zionists.

Consider the paragraph above, with which he opens his article, and focus in particular on his alleging Hamas “anti-Semitism.” If any one should know that Hamas are more pure Semites than all all the Jews in the world today, I was expecting that it would be him! Ant it’s only logical that one cannot be at the same time Semite and anti-Semitic.

The reason for him to say what he says at the opening of his piece can fall under one of the following possibilities:

1. That he had been receiving death threats from the Zionists for some of his previous writings.
2. That he’s been pressured and censored by the Zionists and their supporters.
3. That he is a Judeo-Chritian fundamentalist at heart, and that always comes to the surface when principles most matter.
4. That he is as confused and superficial as most of the Western journalists are when it comes to understanding complex issues.
5. Or .......(you can add your own!)

I just hope these two sides can find a way to live together in peace soon.

Despite the deaths and destruction brought on the out-numbered and under-armed Palestinians, they put up a courageous resistance and forced Israel to sue for cease-fire, despite the fact that they declare on every occasion that they don’t negotiate with the so-called “terrorists.” So the 3-thousand military Hamas members, traditionally vilified as terrorist by both the U.S. and Israel, emerge from this as the legitimate freedom fighters with whom colonialist Israel was forced to sign a cease-fire.

If the lessons of the courageous resistance were left to manifest themselves naturally, then the Palestinians are today closest to the liberation of their land than they ever been in the last sixty years!

So, the blood of the martyrs was not spelled in vain; it will nourish the tree of freedom and liberation till it yields the desired fruits in a glorious coming day of victory. Then this victory will bring peace!

Yes there are people with hearts who speak up and sing for the Palestinian resistance. One of them is is Michael Heart, who wrote/sang a “Song for Gaza” entitled “We will not go down.”

Hope you can listen to it by accessing his website at:

http://www.michaelheart.com

Big B

I agree with you , I Pray that the saudi and Kuwaiti Oil Fields dry up as soon as possible (and im an Arab ) when the saudis and the kuwaitis were simple Bedouins they had consciences, and compassion for their fellow Arab and muslim, and they had proper faith in islam. Now they have become addict to the Stock exchange and to the Dollar and the saudis are known to finance extremist groups to help their masters in Washington (one ex would be fatah AL Islam , Seymour Hersh explains it well )  once there is no oil may be America will leave us alone and without the US support , we may even manage to topple those ugly Dictators .

It is a “quid pro quo”, however. Why do you think that so many fundamentalist “christians” support the “Holy Land” and zionism concept? It is oil that drives most ,to be sure. But, the “chosen people returning to zion”, to be used for born-agains, tickets to heaven, will keep us there, if we keep electing born again christians.

We need a clearer deliniation between church and state. And, we need to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. For peace, and, the existence of the human race..

maybe we should send zionists (like Dubya) to Israel

War is the ultimate expression of TERRORISM for any one who has been caught in the crossfire of its insane cycle.

The cycle of Violence can ONLY be broken with NONVIOLENCE:

Open and Respectful Dialogue and Equal Human Rights for all.

For the religious the commandment STILL remains;

“Thou shall NOT kill”

To all the ‘Christian’ hawks: WAKE UP!

St. Augustine’s Just War Theory remains one of the most heretical corruptions of what Jesus was all about; NONVIOLENCE even to the point of being whipped, mocked and crucified;

JC remained NONVIOLENT in thought, word and deed.

Jesus was NEVER a Christian; the term ‘Christian’ was not even coined until the days of Paul, about 3 decades after Jesus:

AKA: The Prince of Peace walked the earth and taught that it is the peacemakers who are the children of God, NOT those that bomb, occupy or torture other ones!

2,000 years ago The Cross had NO symbolic religious meaning and was not a piece of jewelry.

When JC said: “Pick up your cross and follow me” everyone THEN understood he was issuing a POLITICAL statement, for the main roads into Jerusalem were lined with crucified agitators, rebels, dissidents and any who disturbed the status quo of the Roman Empire and Military Occupying Forces.

Jesus, was a social, justice, radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who rose up against the corrupt Temple authorities and challenged their job security by teaching the people they did NOT need to pay the priests for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock to be OK with God; for God LOVED them just as they were:

Sinners, poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under the Roman Empire and Military Occupation.

What got JC crucified was disturbing the status quo of the Roman Empire and Occupying Forces by teaching the subversive concept that God preferred the humble sinner, the poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under the Roman Empire and Military Occupation above the elite and arrogant.

The early followers and lovers of Jesus were called members of THE WAY-being THE WAY he taught one should be and that his sisters and brothers were those that DID the will of the Father:

“What does God require? He has told you o’man! Be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord.” -Micah 6:8

Learn More: A GREATER AWAKENING

http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=64&Itemid=195

When the oil is gone, there will be peace. Without oil, the US won’t give two shits what goes on in the region. All the surplus arms that we sold to the Arabs and gave to the Jews will come grinding to a halt. And as they are throwing rocks and shooting arrows at each other they may just come to the realization that they have been used by us for decades.

Poor dumb bastards!