May 16, 2011: IMAGINE Paine, Petty and Lennon Talking to Congress about AIPAC
"A long habit of not thinking a thing
wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right…Reason obeys itself; and
ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it."-Thomas Paine "Imagine there's no countries…Nothing to kill or die for. Imagine all
the people; living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the
only one…Imagine all the people sharing all the world…Our society is run by
insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for
maniacal ends...I believe that as soon as people want peace in the world they
can have it. The only trouble is they are not aware they can get it."-John
Lennon
Too many of We the People of this Democratic
Republic do not READ books and so this member of the New Fourth Estate
[activist reporter] who has become a Citizen of Conscience for U.S. House of
Representatives for 2012, is offering a series of book reviews because "Patriotism
means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or
any other public official."-Theodore Roosevelt
In 2007, I published my second book calling for The THIRD INTIFADA
Also in 2007, another patriot and author, Grant F. Smith, Director for
the Institute of Research Middle East Policy published another must read for every
member of Congress; "Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the
1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal." Smith explained how America’s Middle
East policy has been formulated and thrives due to the dearth of relevant reporting
on AIPAC's activities- essentially because the old Fourth Estate has acted more
like sayanim
[VOLUNTEERS] for Zionism than muckrakers meaning investigative journalists!
Before the worn out canard of being an ‘Anti-Semite’ is hurled at me
–again- I explain: TRUE Antisemitism
is a prejudice against or hostility towards the Jewish people and it is rooted
in fear that breed’s hatred and it
must be denounced and confronted!
Case In Point: In my first book, KEEP HOPE ALIVE I wrote regarding the
‘Christian’ Crusades and the Jewish Holocaust:
"Those barbarians tortured and burned people at the stake! What kind of
Christian could rationalize that? So much hypocrisy! I will not give my soul
over to another. No institution is going to control me…I think Christians can
be real cowards, or else they were sleeping while Hitler was gaining power. I
hate to think it, but maybe it was because they were anti-Semitic?"
According
to Webster’s Dictionary a SEMITE is "a member of any of a number of peoples of
ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and
Arabs or a descendant of these peoples" thus Palestinians are as much a Semite
as any Jew!
So
let us move on by going back to the days when Senator Fulbright asked questions
regarding Jewish-Agency-funded US foreign agents who did not register with the
Justice Department or disclose their true financing, funding flows or covert
activities. In
his book, Smith exposes how AIPAC/American Israel Public Affairs Committee
operates "within a murky nexus regulated by four important but seldom
enforced US laws." [1]
The lax enforcement of The Logan Act, The Foreign Agents Registration Act/FARA,
the 1917 Espionage Act, Thompson Memorandum guidelines for prosecuting
corporate crime coupled with the fear of being labeled anti-Semitic and a media
who have failed at their commission to seek and report the truth have all
colluded to exert an undue influence over Congress and thus; we the people of
America to be "under the de facto influence of a powerful foreign
interest." [2]
Smith documents how AIPAC-a constellation of individuals and organizations that
make up the "Israel lobby" –which I define as a Zionist Lobby-continues
to actively steer USA foreign policy in a militant and pro-Israel only
direction. I am all for the people of the State of Israel to feel SECURE, and as I
comprehend that the only way that can ever be reality is when JUSTICE is done
unto Palestinians which equates to Ending the Military Occupation and honoring
Equal Human Rights for All the people of the so called holy land-which began to
be carved up when ‘civilized’ men in the United Nations partitioned it in 1947
after the British Mandate ended- I have risen up which is INTIFADA in Arabic!
"On the day of the termination of the
British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly
declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as
envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social
and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will
guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the
Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The
Declaration of the Establishment of Israel
IF only Israel had only honored that promise, it would be a wonderful world! Senator Fulbright expressed great concern over the activities of
unregistered foreign agents who worked to influence public opinion and policy which
resulted in the 1963 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings which
investigated and uncovered a "conduit" operation run by the American
Zionist Council, which in 1959 was renamed AIPAC.
Within eight years, the American Zionist Council had received over a half a
million "from the Jewish Agency to create a favorable opinion in this
country for Israeli government policies. The Senate investigation closed down
the conduit, but the extensive propaganda activities still go on…[and] by 1998,
"US aid to Israel exceeded $3 billion a year, the highest amount of US aid
given to any country." [3]
"AIPAC's illegal tactics harm America…[and] corporate crime inflicts far
more damage on society than all street crime combined…Harvard economist Thomas
Stauffer estimated the total cost of [the] prolonged conflict in the Middle
East at $3 trillion [in 2002 USA dollars and he] lays a good deal of the blame
for this at the doorstep of AIPAC." [4] On May 28, 1993 Ariel Sharon explained: "The terms
'democracy' or 'democratic' are totally absent from the Declaration of Independence.
This is not an accident. The intention of Zionism was not to bring democracy,
needless to say. It was solely motivated by the creation in Eretz-Isrel of a
Jewish state belonging to all the Jewish people and to the Jewish people alone.
This is why any Jew of the Diaspora has the right to immigrate to Israel and to
become a citizen of Israel." In another must read for Congress, “An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting
Dispossession, Redeeming Israel” Jeff Halper, American Israeli and
co-founder and coordinator of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and
Professor of Anthropology, explained:
"An ethnocracy is the opposite of a democracy, although it might
incorporate some elements of democracy such as universal citizenship and
elections. It arises when one particular group-the Jews in Israel, the Russians
in Russia, the Protestants in pre-1972 Northern Ireland, the whites in
apartheid South Africa, the Shi’ite Muslims in Iran, the Malay in Malaysia and,
if they had their way, the white Christian fundamentalists in the US-seize
control of the government and armed forces in order to enforce a regime of
exclusive privilege over other groups in what is in fact a multi-ethnic or
multi-religious society. Ethnocracy, or ethno-nationalism, privileges ethnos
over demos, whereby one’s ethnic affiliation, be it defined by race, descent,
religion, language or national origin, takes precedence over citizenship in
determining to whom a county actually 'belongs.'"-Page 74.
On George Washington's birth date, his Farewell Address has been read aloud in
Congress ever since 1896.
However, his warning has not yet seeped into the
consciousness of our elected officials:
"Observe good faith and justice
towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate
attachments for others should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and
amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges
towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a
slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of
evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an
imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and
infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former in the quarrels
and wars of the latter, without adequate justification."
It has been written that the root of all evil is the love of money, and most
nefarious are the consequences of nearly two-trillion American tax dollars which
have reaped "special trade advantages, and preferential contracts. U.S.
aid to Israel cost some 275,000 American jobs each year...Additional known
items include loan guarantees-which the U.S. most probably will be forced to
cover-special contracts for Israeli firms, legal and illegal transfers of
marketable U.S. military technology, de facto exemption from U.S. trade
protection provisions, and discounted sales or free transfers of U.S. military
equipment…net purchases by U.S. parties of Israel Bonds, adds at least $40
billion to the total…U.S. jobs and exports have been affected, adding to costs
and losses…As U.S. relations with Mid East countries deteriorated, trade was
lost. Worsening political relations resulted in the loss of hundreds of
thousands of U.S. jobs…thanks to the Israel lobby." [5]
Smith's book is a work of public service to US for he illuminates
how money laundering of over 50 billion US dollars to "charitable"
organizations and massive covert activities has enabled the ongoing building of
the illegal and apartheid Israeli settlements which have expropriated legally
owned Palestinian land. Today a quarter of a million Jewish settlers/colonists-most
all of which have no historical tie to the Holy Land, have created 'facts on
the ground' to disable a viable contiguous Palestinian state.
On November 21, 2005, top U.S. law enforcement officials attended a briefing
organized by the Council for the National Interest regarding how charities
"such as B'nai B'rith and Hadassah were in direct control of the World
Zionist Organization and directly linked to a massive money-laundering
operation…[and the settlements are] an indirect generator of terrorism against
the United States…[also] Israel never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
treaty [which prohibits] U.S. assistance to any country trafficking in nuclear enrichment's equipment or technology outside of international safeguards."
[6]
The World is well aware of Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons development,
stockpile, and launch capabilities, but due to the influence of AIPAC "it
is business as usual in Washington: criminal wrongdoing continues to corrupt
America's core values, rule of law, and Middle East policy, as the Israel
lobby's crosshairs shift almost completely to Iran." [7]
On July 3, 2008, the Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul stated, "I
hear members of Congress saying 'if we could only nuke them' and that the
atmosphere in Congress indicates that a military strike on Iran has already
been condoned." [8]
Referring to House Congressional Resolution 362 Paul called the 'Virtual Iran
War Resolution', "an absolute blockade of the entire country of Iran,
[that will] punish any country or any business group around the world if they
trade with Iran." [9]
In 2006, Virginia Tilley, Professor of
political science explained:
"In his October 2005 speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad never used the word 'map' or
the term 'wiped off.' According to Farsi-language experts like Juan Cole and
even right-wing services like MEMRI, what he actually said was 'this regime
that is occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.'
"In this speech to an annual anti-Zionist conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad was
being prophetic, not threatening. He was citing Imam Khomeini, who said this line
in the 1980s-a period when Israel was actually selling arms to Iran, so
apparently it was not viewed as so ghastly then.
"Mr. Ahmadinejad had just reminded his audience that the Shah's regime,
the Soviet Union, and Saddam Hussein had all seemed enormously powerful and
immovable, yet the first two had vanished almost beyond recall and the third
now languished in prison.
"So, too, the 'occupying regime' in Jerusalem would someday be gone. His
message was, in essence: 'This too shall pass.'" What has yet to pass are international atomic agency inspectors into
Israel’s WMD facility!
In 1976, the Symington Amendment was adopted to fortify and extend the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. It prohibited US assistance to any country
trafficking in nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside of
international safeguards.
The world learned about Israel's secret underground nuclear weapons facility in
1986 due to Mordechai Vanunu's photographic evidence, but Obama blew Helen
Thomas off when she dared ask about Middle East Nukes by stating he "didn’t
want to speculate." The American government has ignored this elephant in the world and its
collusion in Israel's Nuclear Deceptions and Israel's negation of international
law, UN resolutions, and denial of equal human rights for Palestinians have all
contributed to the instability in the Middle East!
Beginning in the 1990's and even more so after 9/11, US politicians blind
allegiance to Israel has been furthered by the claim that both states are
threatened by Arab terrorist groups and rogue states bent on acquiring weapons
of mass destruction, but the US has more than enough to blow up this one small
planet and America is also the only state to have targeted and murdered innocent ones
via a Nuclear Holocaust!
Many Americans see Israel as an ally and Iran as a mutual enemy, but "We have
seen the enemy and he is US!"-Pogo
The "war on terror" has become a tactic to infuse fear while
it ignores that much of the anger in the Arab world is in response to Israel's military
occupation of Palestine, the concrete wall/electrified fence that has been built
on legally owned Palestinian property which is "financed with U.S. aid at
a cost of $1.5 million per mile. The Israeli wall prevents residents from
receiving health care and emergency medical services. In other areas, the
barrier separates farmers from their olive groves which have been their
families' sole livelihood for generations." [10]
William Fulbright warned, "The age of warrior kings and of warrior
presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of
leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a
leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of
the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human
attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative
imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures."
Yet, America's 'leaders' continue to cower and pander to an "illegal
foreign lobby that has long flouted US law and suborned the national interest
as a foreign agent." [11]
As this Citizen of Conscience for US House of Representatives has been
gifted with COMMON SENSE and as "It’s not my revolution unless I can dance"
[Emma Goldman] I am on my way to D.C. to report on AIPAC’s 2011 Conference
with hope to engage my fellow Americans so that YES WE CAN begin the world
again!
"Soon after I had published the pamphlet
"Common Sense" [on Feb. 14, 1776] in America, I saw the exceeding
probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by
a revolution in the system of religion...The world is my country, all mankind
are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."-Thomas Paine And "Christ, you know it
ain't easy! You know how hard it can be and the way things are going They're
gonna crucify me."-John Lennon But as this American dissident is so seeking to put some starch in the spines
of Congress so that they will put America first and honor the promises that these
United States were founded upon and so that we indeed would observe good faith and justice towards all nations and cultivate peace
and harmony with all;
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell and I won’t back
down."
1. Grant F. Smith, “Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs
Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal”
Page 15. Published 2007 by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy,
Washington D.C.
2. IBID
3. Page 20, 22
4. Page 149-150
5. Page 150-151
6. Page 158
7. Page 155
8. http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=62812§ionid=351020104
9. IBID
10. Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Page 43, Jan/Feb. 2007
11. Grant F. Smith, Page 168
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