Editor's NOTE:
I share Mr. Cooke's concerns re: the competing Senate and House Health Care bills. Both appear more or less to be reform "in name only" which benefit health insurance companies at the expense of the Middle class and working poor. Medicaid rates of reimbursement are already unconscionably low and Medicare reimbursement rates have either been frozen or have failed to keep pace with inflation for over a decade.
As a retired physician and surgeon who has worked in the nightmare that is "for-profit" health care, I favor universal single payer coverage for all Americans. If health insurance companies were eliminated entirely, provider's could be paid reasonable rates of reimbursement for services including increases tied to the rate of inflation (for more see THIS...) Given the fact that Congress is currently "owned" by elite special interests, such an option appears extremely unlikely any time soon. While the current situation is deplorable, I fear the passage of a health insurance industry "reform" bill in the current climate--would be far worse.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
By Shamus Cooke
Global Research,
November 27, 2009
Wading through the endless debate over health care has exhausted the patience of most Americans — the zigzags, obscure language, and long-winded discussion is inherently repulsive.
But now the dust is starting to settle, and the Congressional vision for health care in the U.S. is emerging. Instead of being “progressive,” it will amount to a massive, corporate-inspired attack on American workers, the elderly, and the poor.
After months of confusion and delay, Congress has shipwrecked the popular energy over health care onto the jagged rock of corporate interests. More spectacularly, health care “reform” is being used as an opportunity to greatly advance corporate influence over social spheres long-dedicated to the working-class — seemingly harmless provisions carry with them enormous implications.
These devils hide in the details of the competing health care bills in Congress; both contain debilitating right-wing policies hidden within a progressive shell. Obama is indeed acting as the agent of change, to the great benefit of the U.S. corporate elite.
And although the final bill has yet to be crafted, there exists general agreements as to what the end version will look like. Americans will be forced to buy shoddy corporate insurance with no limit to the cost, no guarantee of quality, with large premiums and other tricks to further gouge consumers. If a public option emerges in the final bill — by no means a guarantee — it will be shrunken enough to insure very few people (2 percent of the U.S. population).
But it gets worse. How this health care “reform” will be paid for has implications that dwarf the above atrocities.
For example, the Democrats were determined to pass a health care bill that “will not add one cent to the deficit.” And they have succeeded: the House and Senate health care bills both plan to reduce the deficit by over $100 billion. But a second-grader could do the math here: more service does not equal less cost — a truism that dominates the for-profit health care industry.
So how does the government plan to save billions of dollars as they “help” millions of people?
The two biggest cost saving schemes are the most damaging. The first is the enormous attack on Medicare. Since its inception, the corporate elite wanted this program struck down. Now they have their man for the job — a Republican could never get away with such obvious treachery.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Senate version of health care would cut $404 billion from Medicare and Medicaid; the house version would cut $570 billion. The final cut could be much more. Obama made the ridiculous claim that only “wasteful” parts of Medicare would be cut. The truth is far different.
One way that both Congressional health care bills will gut Medicare is referred to as “forced productivity gains” — cost saving measures essentially; trimming the fat.
What are these savings? The most mentioned device — by politicians and media alike — is the reduction of “wasteful tests” and procedures that doctors routinely perform, an idea that the health care mega-corporations love. It will save them billions, while having catastrophic effects on the health care of millions of people.
For example, the recent announcement that women will now be persuaded to cut back on screenings for breast cancer and cervical cancer have caused an uproar nationwide: people are correctly making the connection behind Congress’ “forced productivity gains” and the new “recommendations” that will be used by insurance companies to justify cutting these services, both of which will boost profits. The general agreement behind rationing health care in this way will be an attack on not only Medicare, but serve as the backbone of any health care bill passed, negatively effecting everyone unable to afford luxury health care.
Another piece of Medicare that’s being trimmed is Medicare Advantage, a favorite program of the elderly because of its comprehensive services. Premiums for this program are already rising drastically in anticipation of the health care bill’s passage, considered by Congress to be “wasteful.” Without this program, Medicare will be greatly devalued and be more appropriately named: “band-aides for seniors.”
Finally, The Senate health care bill attacks Medicare by reducing payments to doctors by 25 percent. If doctors receive such a drastic reduction in pay, they will simply refuse to see Medicare or Medicaid patients; people will thus be insured only on paper. The newly insured Medicaid patients under any new congressional bill will be sorely disappointed.
Once Medicare is undermined in the above ways, the corporate sponsored right-wing will make a very convincing argument that “Medicare doesn’t work”, leading to future cuts that will further destroy the program.
The second hidden disaster in financing a congressional health care bill is the tax on so-called “gold-plated” or “Cadillac” health insurance policies that some employers offer their workers. This tax is supposedly meant to apply to the health care policies that “elite” employees receive.
And while there should exist no complaints about taxing corporations, the motives behind this particular tax are intentionally deceiving. As it turns out, many, if not most workers in unions will be included in this tax, which, under the Senate version, will include any plan worth more than $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families. Hardly elite, considering the still-soaring costs for health care.
If this provision were to pass — and it’s very popular in Congress — the immediate reaction would be very predictable: employers would immediately drop their health care plans, forcing workers into the now-forced purchasing of inadequate health care. This is why unions oppose such a plan. California Democrat Pete Stark agrees: “Employers and insurers will reduce their benefits to avoid paying the proposed tax.”
Workers fortunate to have union contracts will be heavily pressured to concede their plans, which in the past they’ve sacrificed wage-increases to keep. Ultimately, employers will have a new excuse not to provide health care to workers.
Obama again used his superb intelligence to totally obscure the issue in support of the tax:
“I do think that giving a disincentive to insurance companies to offer Cadillac plans that don’t make people healthier is part of the way that we’re going to bring down health care costs for everybody over the long term.” Translation: he supports taxing the health care of union workers.
Overall, a compromise bill between the Senate and House versions will create utter disaster for the working-class. It will not signal a progressive “step in the right direction,” as many liberals claim. At minimum, it will be a step backward, though more likely such a bill will be an enormous regression, to a time where health care was the exclusive privilege of the wealthy.
The right-wing attacks on “Obamacare” — along with the media’s lack of questioning — have shielded the Democrats from any serious debate about the above questions, including many other concerns unmentioned here.
The trash legislation that Congress is producing is the direct consequence of the Democratic Party being dominated by giant corporations — in this case the health care industry. The two-party system is the political system of the corporate elite, who switch party affiliations when they find it convenient; many of them throw equal money at both parties.
A crucial prop in this broken political system needs to be removed and organized under its own strength. If the unions took their support from the Democrats, organized their members and resources into a new political party, and aggressively pushed reforms that benefited the majority of working-class Americans, U.S. democracy would be tremendously strengthened. Medicare could not only be saved, but expanded to everyone from birth to death and be considered a fundamental human right.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Deception Has Always Been The Name Of Zionism’s Game
By Alan Hart
November 27, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu described his offer to temporarily restrict construction of all-new Jewish settlements on the West Bank excluding Arab East Jerusalem as a “far-reaching and painful step", which was part of a policy he hoped would give a new impetus to peace talks.
Netanyahu is not stupid. He knows that some of us know he is not remotely interested in peace on terms the Palestinians could accept. So what then is his real game plan of the moment? Simple. He is seeking to make peace with the Obama administration. And its response suggests that with the help of the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress he’s got that matter firmly under control.
On 18 November President Obama himself expressed his dismay at Israel’s decision to approve 900 more housing units in East Jerusalem. He said it could lead to a “dangerous situation” because it made it harder for Israel to make peace in the region and “embitters the Palestinians.”
Eight days later the Obama administration says Netanyahu’s new offer, which stresses that there will be no restrictions, not even temporary ones, on new settlement development in East Jerusalem, will help "move forward" peace efforts.
What nonsense. It seems to me that the Obama administration doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going on the matter of how to deal with Netanyahu.
The response of senior Palestinian legislator Mustafa Barghouti was much more in tune with reality. “What Netanyahu announced today is one of his biggest attempts at deception in his history.”
It is, of course, a deception but nobody should be surprised. Not only has deception always been the name of Zionism’s game, it knows no other.
Its very first mission statement way back in 1897 was a deception. The previous year Zionism’s founding father, Theodore Herzl, had written and published Der Judenstaat, The Jewish State. It opened with these words: “The Jews who will it shall have a state of their own.” But as all of Zionism’s founding fathers gathered for their first Congress at Basel in Switzerland, Herzl was among the first to appreciate the need to drop the word state from all public policy pronouncements.
Thus it was that the first Congress of the World Zionist Organisation ended with a public statement that declared Zionism’s mission to be the striving “to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law.”
The difference between “home” and “state” was great.
State would have signaled that what Zionism wanted (and was ruthlessly determined to get) was a sovereign entity, by definition one with full state powers backed by its own military. In other words, a sovereign, fully independent Jewish state would be one that could pose a threat to the rights and possibly even the existence of the Arabs of Palestine. At the time Zionism didn’t want the world, including most Jews of the world, to know that.
Home was a much softer, less disturbing term. It implied, and for propaganda purposes could be asserted to mean, that Zionism would be prepared to settle for an entity without sovereign powers and which therefore would not and could pose any kind of threat to the Arabs.
The proof that Zionism’s founding father knew the substitution of “home” for “state” in the first mission statement was a deception is in his diary, which was not published (was kept secret) for 63 years. Herzl’s entry for 3 September 1897, as published in 1960, included this:
"Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word - which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly - it would be this: At Basel I founded the Jewish state... Perhaps in five years, and certainly 50, everyone will know it... At Basel then, I created this abstraction which, as such, is invisible to the vast majority of people."
It wasn’t only the Arabs and the major powers Zionism didn’t want to scare by using the term state. All of its founding fathers were fully aware that most informed and thoughtful Jews everywhere were opposed to the idea of creating a sovereign Jewish state in the Arab heartland. They believed it to be morally wrong. They feared it would lead to unending conflict. And most of all they feared that if Zionism was allowed by the major powers to have its way, it would one day provoke anti-Semitism.
As it happened, that Jewish concern and those Jewish fears were washed away by the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, without which Zionism almost certainly would not have triumphed.
After its unilateral declaration of independence, the Zionist (not Jewish) state’s policy was to advance by creating facts on the ground. In effect its message to the world was, as it still is: “We know we should not have done this, but we’ve done it. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
November 27, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu described his offer to temporarily restrict construction of all-new Jewish settlements on the West Bank excluding Arab East Jerusalem as a “far-reaching and painful step", which was part of a policy he hoped would give a new impetus to peace talks.
Netanyahu is not stupid. He knows that some of us know he is not remotely interested in peace on terms the Palestinians could accept. So what then is his real game plan of the moment? Simple. He is seeking to make peace with the Obama administration. And its response suggests that with the help of the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress he’s got that matter firmly under control.
On 18 November President Obama himself expressed his dismay at Israel’s decision to approve 900 more housing units in East Jerusalem. He said it could lead to a “dangerous situation” because it made it harder for Israel to make peace in the region and “embitters the Palestinians.”
Eight days later the Obama administration says Netanyahu’s new offer, which stresses that there will be no restrictions, not even temporary ones, on new settlement development in East Jerusalem, will help "move forward" peace efforts.
What nonsense. It seems to me that the Obama administration doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going on the matter of how to deal with Netanyahu.
The response of senior Palestinian legislator Mustafa Barghouti was much more in tune with reality. “What Netanyahu announced today is one of his biggest attempts at deception in his history.”
It is, of course, a deception but nobody should be surprised. Not only has deception always been the name of Zionism’s game, it knows no other.
Its very first mission statement way back in 1897 was a deception. The previous year Zionism’s founding father, Theodore Herzl, had written and published Der Judenstaat, The Jewish State. It opened with these words: “The Jews who will it shall have a state of their own.” But as all of Zionism’s founding fathers gathered for their first Congress at Basel in Switzerland, Herzl was among the first to appreciate the need to drop the word state from all public policy pronouncements.
Thus it was that the first Congress of the World Zionist Organisation ended with a public statement that declared Zionism’s mission to be the striving “to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law.”
The difference between “home” and “state” was great.
State would have signaled that what Zionism wanted (and was ruthlessly determined to get) was a sovereign entity, by definition one with full state powers backed by its own military. In other words, a sovereign, fully independent Jewish state would be one that could pose a threat to the rights and possibly even the existence of the Arabs of Palestine. At the time Zionism didn’t want the world, including most Jews of the world, to know that.
Home was a much softer, less disturbing term. It implied, and for propaganda purposes could be asserted to mean, that Zionism would be prepared to settle for an entity without sovereign powers and which therefore would not and could pose any kind of threat to the Arabs.
The proof that Zionism’s founding father knew the substitution of “home” for “state” in the first mission statement was a deception is in his diary, which was not published (was kept secret) for 63 years. Herzl’s entry for 3 September 1897, as published in 1960, included this:
"Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word - which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly - it would be this: At Basel I founded the Jewish state... Perhaps in five years, and certainly 50, everyone will know it... At Basel then, I created this abstraction which, as such, is invisible to the vast majority of people."
It wasn’t only the Arabs and the major powers Zionism didn’t want to scare by using the term state. All of its founding fathers were fully aware that most informed and thoughtful Jews everywhere were opposed to the idea of creating a sovereign Jewish state in the Arab heartland. They believed it to be morally wrong. They feared it would lead to unending conflict. And most of all they feared that if Zionism was allowed by the major powers to have its way, it would one day provoke anti-Semitism.
As it happened, that Jewish concern and those Jewish fears were washed away by the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, without which Zionism almost certainly would not have triumphed.
After its unilateral declaration of independence, the Zionist (not Jewish) state’s policy was to advance by creating facts on the ground. In effect its message to the world was, as it still is: “We know we should not have done this, but we’ve done it. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Sodom in the nation's capital
There is a centrality of the traditional family to the American dream of opportunity and a centrality of family breakdown to poverty.
By Star Parker
Speroforum.com
Monday, November 23, 2009
At a time when our country is sick, it shouldn't surprise that one our sickest places is our nation's capital. The poverty rate of Washington, DC, almost 20 percent, is one of the highest in the nation. Its child poverty rate is the nation's highest..
DC's public school system, with a graduation rate of less than 50 percent, is one of the worst in the country.
According to DC's HIV/AIDS office, three percent of the local population has HIV or AIDS. The Administrator of this office notes that this HIV/AIDS incidence is "...higher than West Africa...on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya." And the principal way that HIV is transmitted continues to be through male homosexual activity.
Amidst this dismal picture, the DC City Council, perhaps on the theory that serving up another glass of wine is the way to help a drunk, is scheduled to vote on December 1 to legalize same sex marriage in America's capital city.
Looking at realities in Washington, DC should make clear why George Washington said "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports."
But the America that our first president had in mind was very different from the vision of our DC government officials.
George Washington's America was one in which the point of freedom is to allow Man to rise to what he can become. To do this, the greatest challenge he faces is conquering himself. To rise above his baser instincts, to rise above the many temptations that lead him astray. And to achieve this end, as Washington said, "religion and morality are indispensable supports."
In left wing America, of which the DC government is a poster child, freedom means to indulge every instinct that the tradition and religion of George Washington would have us overcome.
Where does it lead? Well, look at DC.
It is tempting to look at DC's realities and just call this a black thing. And by and large it is.
DC is largely black -- almost 60 percent. Its poverty is black poverty. Its public school system serves mostly black children. And its AIDS crisis is mostly among blacks.
But the pathologies that strike the weakest parts of our population most brutally are nonetheless pathologies of the nation.
The Brooking's Institution is one of our oldest policy institutes and certainly no bastion of conservatism. But in a recently published volume, Brooking's scholars Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill point out the centrality of the traditional family to the American dream of opportunity and the centrality of family breakdown to poverty.
Reporting data showing the general breakdown of the traditional American family, they say, "'Some claim that anyone who is concerned about these trends is simply out of touch with modern culture'; we respond that, if that be the case, then, 'modern culture is out of touch with the needs of children.'"
The Catholic Archdiocese of DC announced that legalization of same sex marriage would make it impossible to continue its relationship with the DC government and require termination of the social services it provides to some 68,000 of the city's poor -- including about one third of its homeless. The reaction of DC council member David Catania was essentially "so what." According to him, "their services are not indispensable."
Is Catania out of touch with the needs of DC's poor?
No. He just has different priorities. More important to him, and more important to DC's left wing city council, is advancing moral relativism and the indulgences it feeds.
This is more important to them than feeding the poor or recognizing the values that would get them out of poverty.
It should concern every American as we watch our nation's capital city transform officially into Sodom.
By Star Parker
Speroforum.com
Monday, November 23, 2009
At a time when our country is sick, it shouldn't surprise that one our sickest places is our nation's capital. The poverty rate of Washington, DC, almost 20 percent, is one of the highest in the nation. Its child poverty rate is the nation's highest..
DC's public school system, with a graduation rate of less than 50 percent, is one of the worst in the country.
According to DC's HIV/AIDS office, three percent of the local population has HIV or AIDS. The Administrator of this office notes that this HIV/AIDS incidence is "...higher than West Africa...on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya." And the principal way that HIV is transmitted continues to be through male homosexual activity.
Amidst this dismal picture, the DC City Council, perhaps on the theory that serving up another glass of wine is the way to help a drunk, is scheduled to vote on December 1 to legalize same sex marriage in America's capital city.
Looking at realities in Washington, DC should make clear why George Washington said "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports."
But the America that our first president had in mind was very different from the vision of our DC government officials.
George Washington's America was one in which the point of freedom is to allow Man to rise to what he can become. To do this, the greatest challenge he faces is conquering himself. To rise above his baser instincts, to rise above the many temptations that lead him astray. And to achieve this end, as Washington said, "religion and morality are indispensable supports."
In left wing America, of which the DC government is a poster child, freedom means to indulge every instinct that the tradition and religion of George Washington would have us overcome.
Where does it lead? Well, look at DC.
It is tempting to look at DC's realities and just call this a black thing. And by and large it is.
DC is largely black -- almost 60 percent. Its poverty is black poverty. Its public school system serves mostly black children. And its AIDS crisis is mostly among blacks.
But the pathologies that strike the weakest parts of our population most brutally are nonetheless pathologies of the nation.
The Brooking's Institution is one of our oldest policy institutes and certainly no bastion of conservatism. But in a recently published volume, Brooking's scholars Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill point out the centrality of the traditional family to the American dream of opportunity and the centrality of family breakdown to poverty.
Reporting data showing the general breakdown of the traditional American family, they say, "'Some claim that anyone who is concerned about these trends is simply out of touch with modern culture'; we respond that, if that be the case, then, 'modern culture is out of touch with the needs of children.'"
The Catholic Archdiocese of DC announced that legalization of same sex marriage would make it impossible to continue its relationship with the DC government and require termination of the social services it provides to some 68,000 of the city's poor -- including about one third of its homeless. The reaction of DC council member David Catania was essentially "so what." According to him, "their services are not indispensable."
Is Catania out of touch with the needs of DC's poor?
No. He just has different priorities. More important to him, and more important to DC's left wing city council, is advancing moral relativism and the indulgences it feeds.
This is more important to them than feeding the poor or recognizing the values that would get them out of poverty.
It should concern every American as we watch our nation's capital city transform officially into Sodom.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
ARE HATE CRIME LAWS LEGALIZING TREASON?
By: Jeff Gates
OpinionMaker.com
20 Nov, 2009
Winning wars in the Information Age largely depends on winning the battle for public opinion. Thus the opinion-shaping role of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) when it attacked a high profile California professor for his criticism of Israeli policy in Palestine.
That ADL intimidation campaign successfully chilled debate on campuses nationwide during several time-critical months while a new president, promising the hope of change, reassessed U.S.-Israeli relations. His only change—endorsing more Israeli settlements on Palestinian land—quashed any hope of peace.
This ADL silencing strategy offers a microcosm of how the U.S. was induced to war in Iraq based on false intelligence. From the provocation of September 11, 2001 until the invasion of March 2003, war-planners ignored, dismissed or sought to silence anyone critical of the spurious premises offered for war. Only later did we discover that the intelligence was fixed around a preset agenda. Even now, Americans are unaware that the U.S.-led invasion had long been an Israeli goal.
In similar fashion, an ADL campaign silenced on-campus criticism of Israel’s December 2008 assault on Gaza. At the University of California Santa Barbara, ADL-initiated charges were lodged against sociology Professor William Robinson. The disciplinary action dragged on until June 24th when 100 professors and 20 department heads demanded an end to all proceedings.
By then the damage was done—to the reputation of Professor Robinson, to academic freedom at the University of California and to national security as this campaign silenced academics countrywide. While Robinson’s reputation can be restored, the damage to national security is irreparable.
Manipulating Thought
The ADL and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles coordinated the assault on Robinson after he shared with students from his globalization website a photo essay critical of Israel. The essay had circulated for weeks on the Internet. Aaron Ettenberg, a member of the Faculty Senate Charges Committee, collaborated with Santa Barbara Rabbi Arthur Gross-Schaefer who reviled Robinson in the local community and urged—along with the ADL—that he be disciplined by the university for his “anti-Semitic” behavior.
Chancellor Henry Yang was subjected to threats to withhold funding featuring a campaign led by ADL National Director Abe Foxman and Rabbi Marvin Heir from the Wiesenthal Center.
Professor Ettenberg had served the previous two years as president of the local chapter of B’nai B’rith, an ADL affiliate. Rabbi Gross-Schaefer was director of the local chapter of Hillel, an on-campus ADL affiliate.
Mark Yudof, president of the University of California, opted not to intervene even as this silencing campaign attracted international attention. Yudof’s wife, Judith, is the immediate past international president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism representing 760 synagogues. She is also a director of Hillel.
As with the dominance of Jewish Zionists among neoconservative war-planners, the pro-Israeli bias was all-pervasive. Richard Blum chairs the statewide Board of Regents for the University of California. His wife, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. What was their reaction as this professor was silenced? Silence.
Coincidence or Faith-Based Coordination?
Would a professor and a local rabbi have risked their careers and their reputations absent their confidence that—based on the shared bias of university administrators and government officials—they could intimidate with impunity? Absent such implied support, would this silencing operation have dragged on for so long?
Absent their silence—with its tacit approval—what might have been the impact of campus criticism when Israel’s assault on the captive population of Gaza left 1300 dead, one-third reportedly women and children? Those complicit in this silencing campaign knew the impact on public opinion of student protests against the Vietnam War—particularly on California campuses.
Those concerned about anti-Semitism must explain how this broadly coordinated intimidation campaign was allowed to succeed. In the same way that public opinion was manipulated prior to an invasion that launched the Global War on Terrorism, this campaign sought to deny students the facts required to understand Israel’s role in provoking that terror.
Absent access to facts, how can the U.S. preserve a system of self-governance founded on the premise of informed consent? Without facts, how can national security be protected from those who “fix” intelligence in order to deploy the U.S. military for the interests of a foreign nation?
Unless those complicit are held accountable, how will American youth learn the essential role of free and open debate on topics of direct relevance to their lives?
In a representative system of government, the greatest threat to liberty is manipulation of the facts required for informed citizen participation. Anyone who cherishes freedom should be alarmed at the ongoing success of such manipulation and outraged that its common source traces to a purported ally.
Psychological warfare targets knowledge as a means to manipulate thought, opinion and emotion (the “hearts and minds”) and thereby influence behavior. At the center of such disinformation is the displacement of facts with false beliefs meant to prod decision-making toward a preset goal.
Thus the false reports of Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and so forth. Thus the high profile assault on a high-profile center of learning to silence a professor who threatened to replace manipulated beliefs with confirmed facts.
Where U.S. policies toward Israel are at stake, facts are routinely suppressed to shape debate. Such strategic deceit systematically undermines U.S. national security.
Treason in Plain Sight
Intimidation campaigns have long been a key tool for organized crime and for those whose undisclosed agenda can succeed only when shielded from public scrutiny. Those complicit in such “psy-ops” know their agenda could not prevail in an open debate. They also know that if their treachery is detected they face charges of treason, a capital crime.
That’s why this form of treason instead targets knowledge to corrupt the facts required for informed choice. That focus denies those targeted a meaningful choice while leaving intact the appearance of open debate. Meanwhile the perpetrators seek refuge behind the very freedoms they undermine—freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion.
In this case, pro-Israeli operatives silenced on-campus criticism of Israel while Israel committed dozens of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Evidence of those crimes was depicted in the Internet-posted photo essay that the ADL attacked as “anti-Semitic.”
What was the strategic result? That assault on Gaza marked yet another violent provocation guaranteed to catalyze a violent reaction (aka “terrorism”), adding plausibility to the narrative of “militant Islam.” The result made the U.S. appear guilty by its association with this criminality.
We then compounded our complicity by covering up the facts when the Congress, dominated by the Israel lobby, overwhelmingly approved a resolution portraying as “irredeemably biased” a chronicle of those war crimes in “The Goldstone Report,” a comprehensive account by an eminent Jewish jurist. [See How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy] HERE...
The U.S. was doubly damaged. We not only discredited ourselves, we also endangered our national security by condoning criminality destined to provoke more violence directed at our troops.
When such psy-ops campaigns are detected, defenders of democracy must fight back by making the perpetrators transparent and their common motivation apparent. This is how Israel wages war on the U.S. from inside the U.S.—by deceiving us to wage its wars and by provoking others to hate us due to our alliance with religious extremists and their apartheid policies.
Duplicity has long been a weapon deployed to “wage war by way of deception.” That’s the operative motto of the Mossad, the intelligence and foreign operations branch of the Jewish nationalists who have dominated Israeli politics since a Christian-Zionist president erred in 1948 by recognizing as a legitimate “state” this enclave of Jewish extremists and ultra-nationalists.
Israel specializes in what the Pentagon calls unconventional warfare. Such warfare is only “unconventional” for the targeted population (us). For militant Zionists, this is how war is waged. When your numbers are few and your ambitions vast, deceit becomes an essential force-multiplier.
In the Information Age, why would anyone expect war to be waged in any way other than by deception? Where else but in plain sight could sch warfare be waged? For freedom to prevail against such psy-ops requires a shift in strategic focus. A robust defense would make this manipulation transparent in real time before deception can work its intended impact on public opinion.
The dominance of pro-Israelis in mainstream media complicates that task. Media complicity was essential to succeed in the deceit that took the U.S. to war and that now seeks to obscure Israeli war crimes.
A Special Relationship with Fanatics
The Pentagon warned six decades ago that Jewish extremists sought military and economic dominance over the entire Middle East. As the Joint Chiefs of Staff cautioned Harry Truman:
“All stages of this program are equally sacred to the fanatical concepts of the Jewish leaders. The program is openly admitted by some leaders, and has been privately admitted to United States officials by responsible leaders of the presently dominant Jewish group—The Jewish Agency.”
Other than religious fanatics, who would deny Americans—including college students—the facts required to make informed choices on an issue as critical as taking the U.S. to war in the Middle East? Other than pro-Israeli publishers and broadcast media owners, who would have the motivation to report as “facts” the phony intelligence that was fixed around Israeli goals?
If not Israel and its Zionist advocates—both Christians and Jews—who would have the means, motive, opportunity and, importantly, the stable nation state intelligence required to corrupt the intelligence that took the U.S. to war? Or to silence academic critics just when those who induced the invasion of Iraq intensified their efforts to expand this war to Iran and now Pakistan?
If the behavior described is not treason, what is? If this is treason, why have those complicit not been charged? Is Professor Ettenberg still employed by the university? If so, why? Have rabbis Gross-Schaefer and Heir been dismissed from their positions of influence? If not, why not?
Why hasn’t the ADL’s Abe Foxman been indicted? Did he confer with the Yudoffs during this silencing campaign? Has a federal grand jury been impaneled to consider charges of treason? Foxman was invited to the White House for the October 28th signing of the ADL’s “model hate crimes” bill. Will that federal legislation now be deployed to lawfully intimidate critics?
Have mainstream publishers and media owners been investigated for their complicity in this national scale fraud on public opinion? If not, why not? Is the Federal Communications Commission moving to revoke the broadcast licenses of those who used the public airwaves to deceive the public? If not, why not?
Are news reports correct that an investment firm run by Richard Blum made more than $100 million on the rising value of its stock in a top defense contractor? Did his firm also invest in media outlets that sold us this war?
In an irony of epic proportions, ADL’s amendment to federal hate crimes law was tacked onto an appropriations bill for the Department of Defense. Will the ADL now seek to portray as “anti-Semitic” those who document for a long-deceived military the common source of the psy-ops that took U.S. forces to war in the Middle East?
Will those who repeat the Joint Chiefs’ warning about religious fanatics be targeted for federal prosecution? Will allegations of hate be deployed to silence debate? Is treason now lawful?
OpinionMaker.com
20 Nov, 2009
Winning wars in the Information Age largely depends on winning the battle for public opinion. Thus the opinion-shaping role of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) when it attacked a high profile California professor for his criticism of Israeli policy in Palestine.
That ADL intimidation campaign successfully chilled debate on campuses nationwide during several time-critical months while a new president, promising the hope of change, reassessed U.S.-Israeli relations. His only change—endorsing more Israeli settlements on Palestinian land—quashed any hope of peace.
This ADL silencing strategy offers a microcosm of how the U.S. was induced to war in Iraq based on false intelligence. From the provocation of September 11, 2001 until the invasion of March 2003, war-planners ignored, dismissed or sought to silence anyone critical of the spurious premises offered for war. Only later did we discover that the intelligence was fixed around a preset agenda. Even now, Americans are unaware that the U.S.-led invasion had long been an Israeli goal.
In similar fashion, an ADL campaign silenced on-campus criticism of Israel’s December 2008 assault on Gaza. At the University of California Santa Barbara, ADL-initiated charges were lodged against sociology Professor William Robinson. The disciplinary action dragged on until June 24th when 100 professors and 20 department heads demanded an end to all proceedings.
By then the damage was done—to the reputation of Professor Robinson, to academic freedom at the University of California and to national security as this campaign silenced academics countrywide. While Robinson’s reputation can be restored, the damage to national security is irreparable.
Manipulating Thought
The ADL and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles coordinated the assault on Robinson after he shared with students from his globalization website a photo essay critical of Israel. The essay had circulated for weeks on the Internet. Aaron Ettenberg, a member of the Faculty Senate Charges Committee, collaborated with Santa Barbara Rabbi Arthur Gross-Schaefer who reviled Robinson in the local community and urged—along with the ADL—that he be disciplined by the university for his “anti-Semitic” behavior.
Chancellor Henry Yang was subjected to threats to withhold funding featuring a campaign led by ADL National Director Abe Foxman and Rabbi Marvin Heir from the Wiesenthal Center.
Professor Ettenberg had served the previous two years as president of the local chapter of B’nai B’rith, an ADL affiliate. Rabbi Gross-Schaefer was director of the local chapter of Hillel, an on-campus ADL affiliate.
Mark Yudof, president of the University of California, opted not to intervene even as this silencing campaign attracted international attention. Yudof’s wife, Judith, is the immediate past international president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism representing 760 synagogues. She is also a director of Hillel.
As with the dominance of Jewish Zionists among neoconservative war-planners, the pro-Israeli bias was all-pervasive. Richard Blum chairs the statewide Board of Regents for the University of California. His wife, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. What was their reaction as this professor was silenced? Silence.
Coincidence or Faith-Based Coordination?
Would a professor and a local rabbi have risked their careers and their reputations absent their confidence that—based on the shared bias of university administrators and government officials—they could intimidate with impunity? Absent such implied support, would this silencing operation have dragged on for so long?
Absent their silence—with its tacit approval—what might have been the impact of campus criticism when Israel’s assault on the captive population of Gaza left 1300 dead, one-third reportedly women and children? Those complicit in this silencing campaign knew the impact on public opinion of student protests against the Vietnam War—particularly on California campuses.
Those concerned about anti-Semitism must explain how this broadly coordinated intimidation campaign was allowed to succeed. In the same way that public opinion was manipulated prior to an invasion that launched the Global War on Terrorism, this campaign sought to deny students the facts required to understand Israel’s role in provoking that terror.
Absent access to facts, how can the U.S. preserve a system of self-governance founded on the premise of informed consent? Without facts, how can national security be protected from those who “fix” intelligence in order to deploy the U.S. military for the interests of a foreign nation?
Unless those complicit are held accountable, how will American youth learn the essential role of free and open debate on topics of direct relevance to their lives?
In a representative system of government, the greatest threat to liberty is manipulation of the facts required for informed citizen participation. Anyone who cherishes freedom should be alarmed at the ongoing success of such manipulation and outraged that its common source traces to a purported ally.
Psychological warfare targets knowledge as a means to manipulate thought, opinion and emotion (the “hearts and minds”) and thereby influence behavior. At the center of such disinformation is the displacement of facts with false beliefs meant to prod decision-making toward a preset goal.
Thus the false reports of Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and so forth. Thus the high profile assault on a high-profile center of learning to silence a professor who threatened to replace manipulated beliefs with confirmed facts.
Where U.S. policies toward Israel are at stake, facts are routinely suppressed to shape debate. Such strategic deceit systematically undermines U.S. national security.
Treason in Plain Sight
Intimidation campaigns have long been a key tool for organized crime and for those whose undisclosed agenda can succeed only when shielded from public scrutiny. Those complicit in such “psy-ops” know their agenda could not prevail in an open debate. They also know that if their treachery is detected they face charges of treason, a capital crime.
That’s why this form of treason instead targets knowledge to corrupt the facts required for informed choice. That focus denies those targeted a meaningful choice while leaving intact the appearance of open debate. Meanwhile the perpetrators seek refuge behind the very freedoms they undermine—freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion.
In this case, pro-Israeli operatives silenced on-campus criticism of Israel while Israel committed dozens of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Evidence of those crimes was depicted in the Internet-posted photo essay that the ADL attacked as “anti-Semitic.”
What was the strategic result? That assault on Gaza marked yet another violent provocation guaranteed to catalyze a violent reaction (aka “terrorism”), adding plausibility to the narrative of “militant Islam.” The result made the U.S. appear guilty by its association with this criminality.
We then compounded our complicity by covering up the facts when the Congress, dominated by the Israel lobby, overwhelmingly approved a resolution portraying as “irredeemably biased” a chronicle of those war crimes in “The Goldstone Report,” a comprehensive account by an eminent Jewish jurist. [See How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy] HERE...
The U.S. was doubly damaged. We not only discredited ourselves, we also endangered our national security by condoning criminality destined to provoke more violence directed at our troops.
When such psy-ops campaigns are detected, defenders of democracy must fight back by making the perpetrators transparent and their common motivation apparent. This is how Israel wages war on the U.S. from inside the U.S.—by deceiving us to wage its wars and by provoking others to hate us due to our alliance with religious extremists and their apartheid policies.
Duplicity has long been a weapon deployed to “wage war by way of deception.” That’s the operative motto of the Mossad, the intelligence and foreign operations branch of the Jewish nationalists who have dominated Israeli politics since a Christian-Zionist president erred in 1948 by recognizing as a legitimate “state” this enclave of Jewish extremists and ultra-nationalists.
Israel specializes in what the Pentagon calls unconventional warfare. Such warfare is only “unconventional” for the targeted population (us). For militant Zionists, this is how war is waged. When your numbers are few and your ambitions vast, deceit becomes an essential force-multiplier.
In the Information Age, why would anyone expect war to be waged in any way other than by deception? Where else but in plain sight could sch warfare be waged? For freedom to prevail against such psy-ops requires a shift in strategic focus. A robust defense would make this manipulation transparent in real time before deception can work its intended impact on public opinion.
The dominance of pro-Israelis in mainstream media complicates that task. Media complicity was essential to succeed in the deceit that took the U.S. to war and that now seeks to obscure Israeli war crimes.
A Special Relationship with Fanatics
The Pentagon warned six decades ago that Jewish extremists sought military and economic dominance over the entire Middle East. As the Joint Chiefs of Staff cautioned Harry Truman:
“All stages of this program are equally sacred to the fanatical concepts of the Jewish leaders. The program is openly admitted by some leaders, and has been privately admitted to United States officials by responsible leaders of the presently dominant Jewish group—The Jewish Agency.”
Other than religious fanatics, who would deny Americans—including college students—the facts required to make informed choices on an issue as critical as taking the U.S. to war in the Middle East? Other than pro-Israeli publishers and broadcast media owners, who would have the motivation to report as “facts” the phony intelligence that was fixed around Israeli goals?
If not Israel and its Zionist advocates—both Christians and Jews—who would have the means, motive, opportunity and, importantly, the stable nation state intelligence required to corrupt the intelligence that took the U.S. to war? Or to silence academic critics just when those who induced the invasion of Iraq intensified their efforts to expand this war to Iran and now Pakistan?
If the behavior described is not treason, what is? If this is treason, why have those complicit not been charged? Is Professor Ettenberg still employed by the university? If so, why? Have rabbis Gross-Schaefer and Heir been dismissed from their positions of influence? If not, why not?
Why hasn’t the ADL’s Abe Foxman been indicted? Did he confer with the Yudoffs during this silencing campaign? Has a federal grand jury been impaneled to consider charges of treason? Foxman was invited to the White House for the October 28th signing of the ADL’s “model hate crimes” bill. Will that federal legislation now be deployed to lawfully intimidate critics?
Have mainstream publishers and media owners been investigated for their complicity in this national scale fraud on public opinion? If not, why not? Is the Federal Communications Commission moving to revoke the broadcast licenses of those who used the public airwaves to deceive the public? If not, why not?
Are news reports correct that an investment firm run by Richard Blum made more than $100 million on the rising value of its stock in a top defense contractor? Did his firm also invest in media outlets that sold us this war?
In an irony of epic proportions, ADL’s amendment to federal hate crimes law was tacked onto an appropriations bill for the Department of Defense. Will the ADL now seek to portray as “anti-Semitic” those who document for a long-deceived military the common source of the psy-ops that took U.S. forces to war in the Middle East?
Will those who repeat the Joint Chiefs’ warning about religious fanatics be targeted for federal prosecution? Will allegations of hate be deployed to silence debate? Is treason now lawful?
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Opinion: Chris Matthews should be fired for his Offensive Interview of Bishop Tobin
By Deacon Keith Fournier
Catholic Online, original HERE...
11/24/2009
Matthews showed how inept he is as an interviewer, how misinformed he is as a Catholic, how rude he is as a person and how threatened he is by the Moral truth.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) – When I discovered that Chris Matthews of the program Hardball was going to interview Bishop Thomas Tobin on the continuing saga of Congressman Patrick Kennedy, I knew I had to watch. Bishop Tobin has courageously - and with a Pastor’s heart - tried to help Congressman Patrick Kennedy to see the dangerous error of his failure to defend the fundamental Right to Life. The Congressman is one of far too many unfaithful Catholics in public life who do not demonstrate moral coherence in their exercise of public office.
After sitting through several segments, I should have known from the “tease” to the segment which I was awaiting where this arrogant, self centered commentator intended to take this alleged “interview”. He repeatedly “teased” to the segment by incessantly repeating the term “Abortion rights” and indicating that he was going to interview Bishop Tobin who was "punishing" Congressman Kennedy for supporting “abortion rights”. There are no “abortion rights”, only human rights. I cannot listen to that phrase “abortion rights” without instantly responding.
The claim of a so called “right” to abort an innocent child is heinous. It is also a fallacy to couch this evil in the language of a woman’s “Right to Choose.” Some choices are always and everywhere wrong. Yet, that is the current state of the positive law in America since the horrendous decisions in Roe and Doe. Women can “choose” to take the life of our first neighbors, the ones who live where we all once lived, in the womb. That “choice” - which is always and everywhere wrong because it is the taking of innocent human life - is also currently protected by the Police Power of the State.
Abortion is the only example of taking innocent human life which is so protected by the Police Power of the State. It has a special status as some sort of "super right" in the American libertine culture and the dictatorship of relativism. Imagine if the positive law created a so called “right” to kill three week old babies because the Supreme Court said it was OK. There is no moral difference. Abortion is feticide in a new language intended to make what is evil sound acceptable.
In an Orwellian effort to change the debate and assuage their consciences its’ advocates have fashioned a “rights language” to make it somehow sound enlightened. It does not work. Science has confirmed what our conscience long ago told all of us, the child in the womb is one of us. She is our neighbor. It is always wrong to kill an innocent neighbor. This truth is written on our hearts by the Natural Law which all just positive laws should participate in and not abrogate. Intentional abortion is wrong and should be illegal in a just society.
The notion that the act of intentionally killing of an entire class of human beings should be called an “abortion right” is despicable. Only human persons can have “rights.” Governments do not create them, they can only recognize them. The act of abortion is a heinous crime. It has no "rights.”
The shorthand phrase “abortion rights” is a linguistic tool used by some journalists like Matthews to further the abortion deception. Even if the positive law of the United States has placed the Police Power behind protecting the evil “choice” to take innocent human life in the womb, one simply cannot have a “right” to do what is always wrong.
Matthews finally did have the good Bishop on his show. It quickly became clear that he intended to pummel him, browbeat him and try to persuade him to abandon the truth and excuse the error which Matthews has embraced. In his grandiosity and arrogance Matthews proceeded to talk over the Bishop, interrupt him, cut him off, and try to lecture him in a condescending manner on “the law”. He repeatedly tried to force him to answer loaded questions. He finally had the audacity to suggest that the Bishop needed to rethink his position.
MSNBC should publicly apologize to the Bishop and Matthews should be fired for his lack of professionalism. To not give this good and intelligent man, this Bishop of the Catholic Church, an opportunity to speak, after inviting him on this show, was inexcusable.
I hope Chris Matthews is reading this article. If you are Chris, here is my heartfelt personal message to you, “You should be ashamed of yourself. You need to get right with God and with your Church”.
Matthews feigned respect by repeatedly calling the Bishop “Your Excellency”, but his manner of proceeding revealed he has no respect for the Office. Matthews, a professing Catholic, also does not understand his own faith. He does not understand that his own Church’s unwavering opposition to the taking of all innocent human life at every age and stage is the ground of every social justice issue.
At several points in this frustrating interview, as the Bishop was trying to help Matthews see that the defense of the Right to Life is a "Natural Law" position and not simply "religious", Matthews simply cut him off and continued his ill mannered browbeating.
Yet, in spite of Matthews asinine effort to claim that morality has nothing to do with the law, the Bishop at least succeeded in showing that morality is the foundation of much of the positive law. He used a few salient examples such as our prohibiting in the law the killing our neighbor, stealing his property or beating him up. Matthews would hear none of it.
Chris Matthews was not interested in interviewing Bishop Thomas Tobin. In this embarrassing excuse for a program he showed how inept he is as an interviewer, how misinformed he is as a Catholic, how rude he is as a person and how threatened he is by the Moral truth as taught with conviction and courage by his own Church.
Chris Matthews should be fired for his offensive and impolite Interview of Bishop Thomas Tobin. Then, he should sign up for the Right of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) and learn the Catholic faith all over again.
Editor's NOTE:
Deacon Keith Fournier is completely correct in the above piece with respect to the moral considerations involved in procured abortion. He is also accurate in stating that Chris Matthews behaved in a very rude and unprofessional manner in his interview of Bishop Tobin, particularly since he professes to be a practicing Roman Catholic.
It is clear that Matthews has no intention of presenting or allowing the accurate elucidation of the actual Roman Catholic position on abortion. Rather, Chris Matthews preferred to engage in rank sophistry, eschewing completely the required academic rigor which in truth, justice and charity this topic demands.
The moral calculus involved in procured abortion may be stated as follows by way of deductive syllogism; 1) it is always and everywhere wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being (major premise). 2.) Procured abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human being (minor premise). 3.) Abortion is always morally wrong (conclusion).
In the referenced interview with Bishop Tobin Chris Matthews admitted he accepts the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that procured abortion is morally wrong. What Matthews did in the interview with Bishop Tobin (as he has in the past) is to quickly pivot from the morality involved to the question of what a so-called secular society--in which there purportedly exists a complete separation of "church and state"--can and cannot enact into positive law--the “personally opposed but publicly supportive” position of Mario Cuomo. I will not contend here with the issue of whether the US constitution specifically envisages a complete separation of church and state (the so-called establishment clause in fact does no such thing) but rather with the issue that there cannot be a complete rupture between morality and civil law.
Matthews' argument can be summarized as follows: Since there is a complete separation in our American society between the positive civil law and the moral teaching that procured abortion is always morally wrong (the position of the Roman Catholic Church), it is acceptable that the positive civil law specifically allows--in the case of procured abortion--what even Matthews agrees is immoral.
In support of his position Matthews observes: not everything that is immoral is illegal, which of course is true. Bishop Tobin responded quite correctly that much of positive civil law is based on the natural (moral) law and that the two should be closely linked. Matthews apparently denies this reality. Matthews further argued that if the goal is to save the lives of the unborn, it is counterproductive to outlaw abortion since some women will find illegal (back-alley abortions) or extra-legal (crossing state or federal lines) ways in which to obtain abortions. Apparently Matthews believes that even if such a prohibition were to significantly limit the number of abortions, the fact that some would still occur is reason enough to maintain the status quo (a fatal error in logic since if this criterion were applied to all legal prohibitions none would be worth retaining--complete prevention of illegal acts is impossible). Unfortunately, the Bishop did not make this argument, either because he was not allowed sufficient time in which to respond or because he did not think of it.
Matthews next engaged in a "straw-man" argument when he attacked the Bishop for being unwilling to severely punish a woman who has an abortion despite believing that intentional abortion is murder (the idea here presumably is that a reticence to punish the woman severely is an admission that having an abortion is not really all that serious). Part of Mathews’ argument seems to be that all serious crimes require appropriately serious punishment--a contention which as a rule is reasonable from the perspective of justice even though depending upon the extenuating circumstances may be made more or less severe in mercy/charity as the civil authority sees fit--a concept which is well established in the positive civil law.
Specifically, it is clear that a range of sentences exist which a judge or jury may select in punishing a given criminal act. The legislative branch has supplied the judicial system with a set of sentencing guidelines for just this purpose. Various extenuating circumstances are taken into account in meting out respective sentences. In the case of abortion--were it to be made illegal throughout the nation, the punishment for those who perform illegal abortions could be made much more severe than for women who have them--a circumstance which Bishop Tobin tried to describe before being rudely interrupted. In way of deterrence, those who perform abortion could be subjected to prolonged prison sentences while the women who have them could be sentenced to extended periods of community service in programs designed to help women carry their unwanted pregnancies to term.
Were the law to be altered in the way described directly above, many, albeit not all abortions would be prevented. The fact that all abortions would not be eliminated is no reason not to prevent most/many abortions through a change in federal law, a reality which is apparently lost on Matthews.
One further argument made by Chris Matthews must also be responded to.
Matthews lambasted the Bishop for interfering with the making of civil law in the United States--apparently because Bishop Tobin has instructed Congressman Kennedy to refrain from the Eucharist due to his very public position on abortion (which is clearly incompatible with Roman Catholic teaching). Bishop Tobin asserted that it was Congressman Kennedy who went public with the instruction to refrain from Eucharistic Communion and that he (Bishop Tobin) had not wished to publicly rebuke Congressman Kennedy. Matthews however was not satisfied contending that Bishop Tobin should be able to state clearly how the civil law regarding abortion should be changed since he was “instructing” Congressman Kennedy how to vote on a matter of civil law.
After repeated questioning from Matthews the Bishop did admit that he would repeal Roe v. Wade but indicated that since he was not a legislator the precise drafting/wording of a prohibitive law against abortion including any sanctions should be left to legislators. Matthews excoriated Bishop Tobin for failure to have precise legislative language at his disposal. According to Chris Matthews, anyone in the clergy who attempts to comment on civil law is out of bounds unless they are prepared to publicly outline their proposed legislative suggestions in detail on demand and without prior notice. It was clear that Bishop Tobin had not been informed beforehand that Matthews would demand it of him. Matthews’ argument is ridiculous on its face! No American whether a member of the clergy or not should be required to spell-out in detail without prior notice how they would construct a complex civil law let alone one that would reverse over 35 years of legal access to abortion.
It should have been enough for Chris Matthews that Bishop Tobin stated clearly: all procured abortion is immoral, Roe v. Wade should be repealed and the precise language of abortion law should be left to legislators who can design sentencing guidelines reflective of the different degrees of culpability and extenuating circumstances of abortion providers and women who have abortions. Instead Matthews erected a "straw-man" and argued that since not all abortions could be eliminated if Roe v. Wade were repealed; the law should remain the same. By this criterion no positive laws prohibiting illegal acts would ever be enacted.
Chris Matthews’s incoherent arguments may be summarized as follows:
• If you can’t do everything, do nothing.
• If you can’t prevent all crimes, prevent none.
• There should be no relationship between morality and the civil law or between the natural law and positive civil law.
• All serious crimes such as murder must be punished identically, (extenuating circumstances, intent etc. are irrelevant and federal criminal guidelines for felonies are inherently absurd).
• Only professional legislators may comment on the civil law or the legislative process (meaning that even Chris Matthews should refrain from doing so)!
It is tragic that Chris Matthews prevented a serious discussion of abortion from taking place on his program. Instead he engaged in bombastic sophistry of the worst sort while simultaneously insulting one of the Bishops of the Church to which he supposedly belongs. Sadly, Matthews lacks even the most basic understanding of the rudiments of the Traditional Roman Catholic faith. Under the circumstances it is a travesty that he claims to be a Roman Catholic. If he is unwilling to adhere to the teachings of the Church he should seek another more to his liking.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Catholic Online, original HERE...
11/24/2009
Matthews showed how inept he is as an interviewer, how misinformed he is as a Catholic, how rude he is as a person and how threatened he is by the Moral truth.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) – When I discovered that Chris Matthews of the program Hardball was going to interview Bishop Thomas Tobin on the continuing saga of Congressman Patrick Kennedy, I knew I had to watch. Bishop Tobin has courageously - and with a Pastor’s heart - tried to help Congressman Patrick Kennedy to see the dangerous error of his failure to defend the fundamental Right to Life. The Congressman is one of far too many unfaithful Catholics in public life who do not demonstrate moral coherence in their exercise of public office.
After sitting through several segments, I should have known from the “tease” to the segment which I was awaiting where this arrogant, self centered commentator intended to take this alleged “interview”. He repeatedly “teased” to the segment by incessantly repeating the term “Abortion rights” and indicating that he was going to interview Bishop Tobin who was "punishing" Congressman Kennedy for supporting “abortion rights”. There are no “abortion rights”, only human rights. I cannot listen to that phrase “abortion rights” without instantly responding.
The claim of a so called “right” to abort an innocent child is heinous. It is also a fallacy to couch this evil in the language of a woman’s “Right to Choose.” Some choices are always and everywhere wrong. Yet, that is the current state of the positive law in America since the horrendous decisions in Roe and Doe. Women can “choose” to take the life of our first neighbors, the ones who live where we all once lived, in the womb. That “choice” - which is always and everywhere wrong because it is the taking of innocent human life - is also currently protected by the Police Power of the State.
Abortion is the only example of taking innocent human life which is so protected by the Police Power of the State. It has a special status as some sort of "super right" in the American libertine culture and the dictatorship of relativism. Imagine if the positive law created a so called “right” to kill three week old babies because the Supreme Court said it was OK. There is no moral difference. Abortion is feticide in a new language intended to make what is evil sound acceptable.
In an Orwellian effort to change the debate and assuage their consciences its’ advocates have fashioned a “rights language” to make it somehow sound enlightened. It does not work. Science has confirmed what our conscience long ago told all of us, the child in the womb is one of us. She is our neighbor. It is always wrong to kill an innocent neighbor. This truth is written on our hearts by the Natural Law which all just positive laws should participate in and not abrogate. Intentional abortion is wrong and should be illegal in a just society.
The notion that the act of intentionally killing of an entire class of human beings should be called an “abortion right” is despicable. Only human persons can have “rights.” Governments do not create them, they can only recognize them. The act of abortion is a heinous crime. It has no "rights.”
The shorthand phrase “abortion rights” is a linguistic tool used by some journalists like Matthews to further the abortion deception. Even if the positive law of the United States has placed the Police Power behind protecting the evil “choice” to take innocent human life in the womb, one simply cannot have a “right” to do what is always wrong.
Matthews finally did have the good Bishop on his show. It quickly became clear that he intended to pummel him, browbeat him and try to persuade him to abandon the truth and excuse the error which Matthews has embraced. In his grandiosity and arrogance Matthews proceeded to talk over the Bishop, interrupt him, cut him off, and try to lecture him in a condescending manner on “the law”. He repeatedly tried to force him to answer loaded questions. He finally had the audacity to suggest that the Bishop needed to rethink his position.
MSNBC should publicly apologize to the Bishop and Matthews should be fired for his lack of professionalism. To not give this good and intelligent man, this Bishop of the Catholic Church, an opportunity to speak, after inviting him on this show, was inexcusable.
I hope Chris Matthews is reading this article. If you are Chris, here is my heartfelt personal message to you, “You should be ashamed of yourself. You need to get right with God and with your Church”.
Matthews feigned respect by repeatedly calling the Bishop “Your Excellency”, but his manner of proceeding revealed he has no respect for the Office. Matthews, a professing Catholic, also does not understand his own faith. He does not understand that his own Church’s unwavering opposition to the taking of all innocent human life at every age and stage is the ground of every social justice issue.
At several points in this frustrating interview, as the Bishop was trying to help Matthews see that the defense of the Right to Life is a "Natural Law" position and not simply "religious", Matthews simply cut him off and continued his ill mannered browbeating.
Yet, in spite of Matthews asinine effort to claim that morality has nothing to do with the law, the Bishop at least succeeded in showing that morality is the foundation of much of the positive law. He used a few salient examples such as our prohibiting in the law the killing our neighbor, stealing his property or beating him up. Matthews would hear none of it.
Chris Matthews was not interested in interviewing Bishop Thomas Tobin. In this embarrassing excuse for a program he showed how inept he is as an interviewer, how misinformed he is as a Catholic, how rude he is as a person and how threatened he is by the Moral truth as taught with conviction and courage by his own Church.
Chris Matthews should be fired for his offensive and impolite Interview of Bishop Thomas Tobin. Then, he should sign up for the Right of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) and learn the Catholic faith all over again.
Editor's NOTE:
Deacon Keith Fournier is completely correct in the above piece with respect to the moral considerations involved in procured abortion. He is also accurate in stating that Chris Matthews behaved in a very rude and unprofessional manner in his interview of Bishop Tobin, particularly since he professes to be a practicing Roman Catholic.
It is clear that Matthews has no intention of presenting or allowing the accurate elucidation of the actual Roman Catholic position on abortion. Rather, Chris Matthews preferred to engage in rank sophistry, eschewing completely the required academic rigor which in truth, justice and charity this topic demands.
The moral calculus involved in procured abortion may be stated as follows by way of deductive syllogism; 1) it is always and everywhere wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being (major premise). 2.) Procured abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human being (minor premise). 3.) Abortion is always morally wrong (conclusion).
In the referenced interview with Bishop Tobin Chris Matthews admitted he accepts the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that procured abortion is morally wrong. What Matthews did in the interview with Bishop Tobin (as he has in the past) is to quickly pivot from the morality involved to the question of what a so-called secular society--in which there purportedly exists a complete separation of "church and state"--can and cannot enact into positive law--the “personally opposed but publicly supportive” position of Mario Cuomo. I will not contend here with the issue of whether the US constitution specifically envisages a complete separation of church and state (the so-called establishment clause in fact does no such thing) but rather with the issue that there cannot be a complete rupture between morality and civil law.
Matthews' argument can be summarized as follows: Since there is a complete separation in our American society between the positive civil law and the moral teaching that procured abortion is always morally wrong (the position of the Roman Catholic Church), it is acceptable that the positive civil law specifically allows--in the case of procured abortion--what even Matthews agrees is immoral.
In support of his position Matthews observes: not everything that is immoral is illegal, which of course is true. Bishop Tobin responded quite correctly that much of positive civil law is based on the natural (moral) law and that the two should be closely linked. Matthews apparently denies this reality. Matthews further argued that if the goal is to save the lives of the unborn, it is counterproductive to outlaw abortion since some women will find illegal (back-alley abortions) or extra-legal (crossing state or federal lines) ways in which to obtain abortions. Apparently Matthews believes that even if such a prohibition were to significantly limit the number of abortions, the fact that some would still occur is reason enough to maintain the status quo (a fatal error in logic since if this criterion were applied to all legal prohibitions none would be worth retaining--complete prevention of illegal acts is impossible). Unfortunately, the Bishop did not make this argument, either because he was not allowed sufficient time in which to respond or because he did not think of it.
Matthews next engaged in a "straw-man" argument when he attacked the Bishop for being unwilling to severely punish a woman who has an abortion despite believing that intentional abortion is murder (the idea here presumably is that a reticence to punish the woman severely is an admission that having an abortion is not really all that serious). Part of Mathews’ argument seems to be that all serious crimes require appropriately serious punishment--a contention which as a rule is reasonable from the perspective of justice even though depending upon the extenuating circumstances may be made more or less severe in mercy/charity as the civil authority sees fit--a concept which is well established in the positive civil law.
Specifically, it is clear that a range of sentences exist which a judge or jury may select in punishing a given criminal act. The legislative branch has supplied the judicial system with a set of sentencing guidelines for just this purpose. Various extenuating circumstances are taken into account in meting out respective sentences. In the case of abortion--were it to be made illegal throughout the nation, the punishment for those who perform illegal abortions could be made much more severe than for women who have them--a circumstance which Bishop Tobin tried to describe before being rudely interrupted. In way of deterrence, those who perform abortion could be subjected to prolonged prison sentences while the women who have them could be sentenced to extended periods of community service in programs designed to help women carry their unwanted pregnancies to term.
Were the law to be altered in the way described directly above, many, albeit not all abortions would be prevented. The fact that all abortions would not be eliminated is no reason not to prevent most/many abortions through a change in federal law, a reality which is apparently lost on Matthews.
One further argument made by Chris Matthews must also be responded to.
Matthews lambasted the Bishop for interfering with the making of civil law in the United States--apparently because Bishop Tobin has instructed Congressman Kennedy to refrain from the Eucharist due to his very public position on abortion (which is clearly incompatible with Roman Catholic teaching). Bishop Tobin asserted that it was Congressman Kennedy who went public with the instruction to refrain from Eucharistic Communion and that he (Bishop Tobin) had not wished to publicly rebuke Congressman Kennedy. Matthews however was not satisfied contending that Bishop Tobin should be able to state clearly how the civil law regarding abortion should be changed since he was “instructing” Congressman Kennedy how to vote on a matter of civil law.
After repeated questioning from Matthews the Bishop did admit that he would repeal Roe v. Wade but indicated that since he was not a legislator the precise drafting/wording of a prohibitive law against abortion including any sanctions should be left to legislators. Matthews excoriated Bishop Tobin for failure to have precise legislative language at his disposal. According to Chris Matthews, anyone in the clergy who attempts to comment on civil law is out of bounds unless they are prepared to publicly outline their proposed legislative suggestions in detail on demand and without prior notice. It was clear that Bishop Tobin had not been informed beforehand that Matthews would demand it of him. Matthews’ argument is ridiculous on its face! No American whether a member of the clergy or not should be required to spell-out in detail without prior notice how they would construct a complex civil law let alone one that would reverse over 35 years of legal access to abortion.
It should have been enough for Chris Matthews that Bishop Tobin stated clearly: all procured abortion is immoral, Roe v. Wade should be repealed and the precise language of abortion law should be left to legislators who can design sentencing guidelines reflective of the different degrees of culpability and extenuating circumstances of abortion providers and women who have abortions. Instead Matthews erected a "straw-man" and argued that since not all abortions could be eliminated if Roe v. Wade were repealed; the law should remain the same. By this criterion no positive laws prohibiting illegal acts would ever be enacted.
Chris Matthews’s incoherent arguments may be summarized as follows:
• If you can’t do everything, do nothing.
• If you can’t prevent all crimes, prevent none.
• There should be no relationship between morality and the civil law or between the natural law and positive civil law.
• All serious crimes such as murder must be punished identically, (extenuating circumstances, intent etc. are irrelevant and federal criminal guidelines for felonies are inherently absurd).
• Only professional legislators may comment on the civil law or the legislative process (meaning that even Chris Matthews should refrain from doing so)!
It is tragic that Chris Matthews prevented a serious discussion of abortion from taking place on his program. Instead he engaged in bombastic sophistry of the worst sort while simultaneously insulting one of the Bishops of the Church to which he supposedly belongs. Sadly, Matthews lacks even the most basic understanding of the rudiments of the Traditional Roman Catholic faith. Under the circumstances it is a travesty that he claims to be a Roman Catholic. If he is unwilling to adhere to the teachings of the Church he should seek another more to his liking.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Monday, November 23, 2009
Plain Talk: Restore law and split up banks
Dave Zweifel | editor emeritus of The Capital Times
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 5:00
Ten years ago, the Republican-controlled Congress — egged on by that champion deregulator, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm — passed legislation that arguably did more to plunge the United States into our crippling great recession than anything else: It repealed the Great Depression era’s Glass-Steagall Act.
Then on Nov. 12, 1999, an acquiescent Democratic president, Bill Clinton, signed the repeal into law.
Glass-Steagall stood as a firewall between commercial banks and Wall Street since 1933, when the country’s leaders heeded the lessons of the 1929 stock market crash and set in place strict regulations in an attempt to prevent such an economic calamity from happening again.
But the country’s financial institutions chafed for decades under Glass-Steagall’s restrictions. If only commercial banks could merge with investment banks and insurance companies, they argued, it would be so much better for the nation’s economy. Gramm, who infamously insisted that the U.S. had become a nation of whiners when the economy started to tank in the fall of 2008, fought for years to repeal Glass-Steagall and finally got his way. Get government out of the way of the free marketplace, he argued, ignoring the fact that historically conservative banks would be joining the high-risk investment community and all the pitfalls it represents.
The repeal sanctioned the formation of the conglomerate Citigroup, for example, permitting commercial bank Citicorp’s merger with Travelers insurance corporation. Citigroup, which now included Citibank, Smith Barney, Primerica and Travelers, combined banking, securities and insurance services under one giant and, as we painfully learned, “too big to fail” financial institution.
That’s how we got today’s Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and the many other giants that participated in dicing and slicing subprime mortgages, and traded in complicated hedge funds, derivatives and other financial manipulations, which commercial banks were forbidden to do for more than 65 years.
Now some of the biggies are coming to recognize the peril they and the country are in as a result. Last week, JPMorgan CEO James Dimon called the idea that any bank is too big to fail “ethically bankrupt” and added that regulators should have the power to let them fail.
Even Citigroup’s co-founder, John Reed, said earlier this month that he’s sorry for creating the monster and that it was a big mistake when the bank merged with Travelers, opening the door to massive risk.
Indeed, Reed said Glass-Steagall should be restored, joining former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who has been trying to convince the Obama administration of the need to return to the act’s strict regulation. That would mean breaking up the “too big to fail” institutions and restoring banks to being banks and investment houses to their own businesses.
Breaking up the biggies would go a long way toward returning stability to the broken system, in which taxpayers are asked to save the conglomerates from their own bad behavior and then forced to sit by while the behemoths return to big profits and obscene bonuses.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, has introduced legislation that would require the Treasury Department to identify the so-called “too big to fail” conglomerates and force them to break up within a year.
Meanwhile, the Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy has started a new project called BanksterUSA to rally support for Sanders’ legislation and advocate for prosecution of Wall Street executives who purposely manipulated markets for their private gain. Its motto is: “Too big to fail, but not too big for jail!” More information is on its website at www.BanksterUSA.org.
After what we’ve gone through and what millions of innocent out-of-work Americans are still going through, it truly is time to restore Glass-Steagall and rid ourselves of these “too big to fail” conglomerates.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 5:00
Ten years ago, the Republican-controlled Congress — egged on by that champion deregulator, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm — passed legislation that arguably did more to plunge the United States into our crippling great recession than anything else: It repealed the Great Depression era’s Glass-Steagall Act.
Then on Nov. 12, 1999, an acquiescent Democratic president, Bill Clinton, signed the repeal into law.
Glass-Steagall stood as a firewall between commercial banks and Wall Street since 1933, when the country’s leaders heeded the lessons of the 1929 stock market crash and set in place strict regulations in an attempt to prevent such an economic calamity from happening again.
But the country’s financial institutions chafed for decades under Glass-Steagall’s restrictions. If only commercial banks could merge with investment banks and insurance companies, they argued, it would be so much better for the nation’s economy. Gramm, who infamously insisted that the U.S. had become a nation of whiners when the economy started to tank in the fall of 2008, fought for years to repeal Glass-Steagall and finally got his way. Get government out of the way of the free marketplace, he argued, ignoring the fact that historically conservative banks would be joining the high-risk investment community and all the pitfalls it represents.
The repeal sanctioned the formation of the conglomerate Citigroup, for example, permitting commercial bank Citicorp’s merger with Travelers insurance corporation. Citigroup, which now included Citibank, Smith Barney, Primerica and Travelers, combined banking, securities and insurance services under one giant and, as we painfully learned, “too big to fail” financial institution.
That’s how we got today’s Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and the many other giants that participated in dicing and slicing subprime mortgages, and traded in complicated hedge funds, derivatives and other financial manipulations, which commercial banks were forbidden to do for more than 65 years.
Now some of the biggies are coming to recognize the peril they and the country are in as a result. Last week, JPMorgan CEO James Dimon called the idea that any bank is too big to fail “ethically bankrupt” and added that regulators should have the power to let them fail.
Even Citigroup’s co-founder, John Reed, said earlier this month that he’s sorry for creating the monster and that it was a big mistake when the bank merged with Travelers, opening the door to massive risk.
Indeed, Reed said Glass-Steagall should be restored, joining former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who has been trying to convince the Obama administration of the need to return to the act’s strict regulation. That would mean breaking up the “too big to fail” institutions and restoring banks to being banks and investment houses to their own businesses.
Breaking up the biggies would go a long way toward returning stability to the broken system, in which taxpayers are asked to save the conglomerates from their own bad behavior and then forced to sit by while the behemoths return to big profits and obscene bonuses.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, has introduced legislation that would require the Treasury Department to identify the so-called “too big to fail” conglomerates and force them to break up within a year.
Meanwhile, the Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy has started a new project called BanksterUSA to rally support for Sanders’ legislation and advocate for prosecution of Wall Street executives who purposely manipulated markets for their private gain. Its motto is: “Too big to fail, but not too big for jail!” More information is on its website at www.BanksterUSA.org.
After what we’ve gone through and what millions of innocent out-of-work Americans are still going through, it truly is time to restore Glass-Steagall and rid ourselves of these “too big to fail” conglomerates.
Israel building Jewish homes with one hand, destroying Arab homes with the other
By Nir Hasson
Haaretz
Last update - 08:40 19/11/2009
Palestinians attending a rally against the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank on Wednesday. AP
The World Likud movement held a cornerstone-laying ceremony yesterday for the expansion of the neighborhood of Nof Zion, despite - or possibly because of - American pressure against building in East Jerusalem. The Jewish settlement is in the middle of the Arab village of Jabal Mukkaber. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem municipality razed two Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem yesterday.
The plan is to add to Nof Zion 105 new apartments to the 90 ones that are already there, most of which are already occupied. The neighborhood is considered "prestigious," but the developers ran into trouble a few years ago after they failed to sell the apartments to Jews from overseas. About a year ago the developers changed their marketing strategy to target the local national-religious market - and the apartments began selling quickly. The developers expect the same for the new part of the neighborhood.
The World Likud's announcement of the ceremony said the neighborhood was near Jabal Mukkaber, "bounded by terraces and with olive trees and grapevines."
In fact, however, Nof Zion is in the middle of the village, near Palestinian homes. In September Haaretz reported that the family of the late actor-comedian Shaike Ophir criticized the municipality's decision to name a street in Nof Zion after him.
A group of American Jews interested in buying apartments in Nof Zion attended yesterday's ceremony. New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who is considered a staunch supporter of the settlers, headed the group.
Addressing the ceremony, MK Danny Danon (Likud) said that Jerusalem will never be a part of negotiations with the Palestinians. He called Barack Obama "naive" and said the U.S. president still does not seem to understand who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in the conflict.
Yesterday the Jerusalem municipality razed two Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, one in Isawiyah and one in Silwan. In both cases, local residents battled security forces.
In Isawiyah villagers tried to block the entrance to the village with cars, while in Silwan local residents threw rocks at police officers after the house was destroyed.
Haaretz
Last update - 08:40 19/11/2009
Palestinians attending a rally against the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank on Wednesday. AP
The World Likud movement held a cornerstone-laying ceremony yesterday for the expansion of the neighborhood of Nof Zion, despite - or possibly because of - American pressure against building in East Jerusalem. The Jewish settlement is in the middle of the Arab village of Jabal Mukkaber. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem municipality razed two Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem yesterday.
The plan is to add to Nof Zion 105 new apartments to the 90 ones that are already there, most of which are already occupied. The neighborhood is considered "prestigious," but the developers ran into trouble a few years ago after they failed to sell the apartments to Jews from overseas. About a year ago the developers changed their marketing strategy to target the local national-religious market - and the apartments began selling quickly. The developers expect the same for the new part of the neighborhood.
The World Likud's announcement of the ceremony said the neighborhood was near Jabal Mukkaber, "bounded by terraces and with olive trees and grapevines."
In fact, however, Nof Zion is in the middle of the village, near Palestinian homes. In September Haaretz reported that the family of the late actor-comedian Shaike Ophir criticized the municipality's decision to name a street in Nof Zion after him.
A group of American Jews interested in buying apartments in Nof Zion attended yesterday's ceremony. New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who is considered a staunch supporter of the settlers, headed the group.
Addressing the ceremony, MK Danny Danon (Likud) said that Jerusalem will never be a part of negotiations with the Palestinians. He called Barack Obama "naive" and said the U.S. president still does not seem to understand who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in the conflict.
Yesterday the Jerusalem municipality razed two Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, one in Isawiyah and one in Silwan. In both cases, local residents battled security forces.
In Isawiyah villagers tried to block the entrance to the village with cars, while in Silwan local residents threw rocks at police officers after the house was destroyed.
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