My post about Masa raised the dual-loyalty issue, and this seemed a good time to repeat myself and offer a number of instances in which the issue has come to my attention in the last year or so. Here goes:
–Harvard Yiddishist Ruth Wisse says at the Center for Jewish History that young American Jews should consider themselves part of Israel’s "army" and just give up a couple of years of their lives to fight as advocates here, particularly against Arab voices on campus. To his credit, Eric Alterman (a board member of "J Street," the alternative lobby) identified this as a call to dual loyalty.
–John Judis of the New Republic bravely states on TNR’s website that many American Jewish organizations "make dual loyalty an inescapable part of being Jewish in a world in which a Jewish state exists." You will find that the link in my original post no longer goes to that text on the TNR site. Does that make my post the only record of this courageous statement?
–A friend of mine returns from the birthright trip and shows my family photographs of his tour, including a visit to an Israeli army base where the kids meet Americans who have joined the IDF. As I recall, some of the visiting kids got to handle guns. The U.S. is at war. Has any of these able-bodied kids set foot anywhere near an American base?
–The New England Patriots’ owner’s wife says her sons can fight for Israel, not the U.S.
–At a Columbia U. event featuring the awe-inspiring Israeli group, Breaking the Silence, Rachel Glaser, a rep for Zionist Organization of America, attacks the Jewish sponsors of the presentation, saying it was OK for such a show to go on in Israel, but "Outside of Israel, you’re playing with fire." I.e., Jews have to stand together and manipulate American opinion in favor of Israel.
–A writer at Huffington Post, having read Bush Middle East adviser Elliott Abrams’s 1997 statement that outside of Israel, Jews must "stand apart from the nation in which they live" (printed in Walt and Mearsheimer’s book, reported by me years ago in the Observer), says that Abrams should be investigated by the Senate so as to determine whose national interest he was putting first, Israel’s or the U.S.’s.
–Dual loyalty is obviously a major issue in the AIPAC espionage trial, which keeps getting put off.
I’ve never called on anyone to be prosecuted or investigated for dual loyalty, though I’d sure like to be there to hear the testimony. I don’t have any evidence of treason. Also it is not illegal to have dual loyalty, especially since the Supreme Court allowed an American-Israeli artist to come back here and vote in a landmark decision some 40 years ago.
What I’ve said again and again is that I find all the invocations of loyalty to Israel confusing and inappropriate. But as Judis said, this is now part of Jewish identity. At Jimmy Carter’s speech at Brandeis a year or so back, Jewish kids wore blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, to protest him. A lot of the kids on Masa’s promotions appear to be similarly indoctrinated. On the Sabbath, synagogues offer a "prayer for the state of Israel" and put banners out on their lawns saying, "We Stand With Israel." The merging of U.S. and Israeli interests is most concerning in public life. I always wonder why the American Enterprise Institute slips $96,000 a year to Dore Gold, a neocon and former Netanyahu ambassador, as a "scholar" in Jerusalem, and his services are rarely evident in AEI events. Or why Richard Perle and David Wurmser of AEI could write a paper for Netanyahu urging him to end the peace process and then go to work in Bush’s Administration–which claimed it was for the peace process.
I never thought about this stuff till Iraq happened and my country stepped off its path. Why? Why did we invade an Arab country that did not attack us, and occupy it for many years, causing untold misery, and causing our soldiers to become the targets of suicide bombers? One reason was a climate of dual loyalty, and the confusion it helped to foster among some advocates for the war about what is the American national interest.
Related Posts
- Another Achievement of the AJC: ‘The New Republic’ Joins Me on Dual Loyalty Issue
- John Judis Scooped Joe Klein on ‘Dual Loyalty,’ But You Can’t Find His Piece on TNR Site
- Assimilation v. Dual Loyalty in American Jewish Identity
- By all means, let us have the dual loyalty debate
- Fleshler Exonerates Neocons of Dual Loyalty. Why He’s Wrong…
{ 49 comments }
Heh.
I just blogged about this a bit.
Source was politico.com from 2007,
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3177.html
"Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is moving to tamp down concerns among Democratic supporters of Israel with an e-mail from a Florida congressman to Jewish leaders singing the senator’s praises.
“What has always struck me about Senator Obama – and this is one of the reasons that I have endorsed his candidacy for president – is that a love for Israel and a desire to keep the Jewish people secure is evident not just in his work, but also in his heart,” wrote Rep. Robert Wexler (D) in the e-mail, which was sent to a list of Jewish community leaders."
How much more blatant can you get?
"a love for Israel and a desire to keep the Jewish people secure is evident not just in his work, but also in his heart"
Lovely.
Anybody got a more blatant example?
Do I win the thread?
Oh, and if you want, my blog post ranting and raving about this is here:
http://americangoy.blogspot.com/2008/04/american-president-job-prerequisite-1.html
America's former ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, recently spoke to the Philadelphia Jewish community about the upcoming US presidential election. And this, in part, is what he said:
"So, when I looked at the candidates [for President of the United States], the first question on my mind – and it is probably the first question on the minds of many of you in this room – is where does the candidate stand with respect to Israel?"
Does this strike you as blatantly disloyal as its strikes me? Kurtzer is an experienced diplomat who served 29 years in the State Department, was ambassador both to Israel and later to Egypt, and currently is a a visiting professor at at Princeton. And yet when he gives a speech to a group of American Jews in Philadelphia, what does he tell them? He says that for him (as he assumes is true for everyone in the room as well) the most important thing when it comes to choosing a United States president is how the candidate stands "with respect to Israel."
Note that he didn't say the most important issue for Jewish Americans is the candidate's stance with respect to the slumping economy, loss of manufacturing jobs, balance of payment, declining dollar, energy prices, death toll in Iraqi, lack of health care, illegal immigration, the mortgage crisis or climate change. No, the first (and really only important question in the minds of American Jews, according to Kurtzer) is how the candidate stands on Israel.
In WWII, such misplaced loyalties would have been regarded as treason. Today the mainstream media represents such views as understandable commitment to "the only democracy in the middle east."
Well, phooey on that.
"The U.S. is at war. Has any of these able-bodied kids set foot anywhere near an American base?"
I know what you mean, but frankly, I'd be more concerned about it if the war the U.S. is currently in were more justifiable and better-run than it is. We should not have attacked Afghanistan or Iraq any more than we should have been in Vietnam. The IDF, of course, is problematic too unless you think of Palestinians as disgusting animals who deserve nothing but a bullet between the eyes, but I don't agree with your implied argument that young American citizens (Jewish or otherwise) are in any sense obligated to risk their lives for Bush's insane delusions of imperial power.
Phil,
A list of anecdotes does not of itself add up to the conclusion that you bore.
You are adding the element of interpretation to every one, a prejudicially suspicious interpretation.
There is gravity in the world. I don't condemn it when I lose my balance and fall.
AGAIN and AGAIN,
If dual loyalty (however opportunistically described) is not illegal, not unethical in personal sentiment, does not itself directly result in harms to any parties, then it is not "dual loyalty" that is the issue but ONLY specifically how the attitude is applied.
And, ONLY specific actions (not the general) applying the sentiment are wrong, and even many of those that you are suspicious of, are subject to debate.
I am definitely dually loyal, and I think it is a MORE ETHICAL position than to be singly loyal. I'm more than dually loyal, I'm loyal to my family. I'm loyal to my employer. I'm loyal to my profession. I'm loyal to my home town. (When I speak about the town where I live, that is my HOME. That is my "we".) I am definitely loyal to my region.
Hear this please.
I find your repeated invocations opposing dual loyalty as a generalization where the sentiment is the crime not the actions, to be suppressive and collectively punitive.
I personally can't find a distinction in your approach that does not contain the seeds of fascism.
I agree with you that the prayer for the state of Israel has no place in synagogue worship, and I don't say it. (I have on occassion said prayers for the IDF to be successful in protecting Jewish people in Israel, though.)
Please then in the effort for consistency, strongly object to any invocations of loyalty to the United States in any religious ceremony anywhere as similarly off the point.
Just to beat a point home.
Are you loyal to your family?
If, even in a dream, your parents were put on some "trial" for their beliefs, and professed that they care about the ecology of the capes of New Brunswick (not in the US, though similar geographically to a region that they love) more than they cared about patriotism to the US, would you in that dream turn them in, testify as to their disloyalty?
In that dream.
Would you be the judge, the testifying witness, the defense attorney, the journalist, the interrogator, or some other role in that dream?
The reason I pick a dream-state as reference, is for the honesty of dream-states.
The question is whether "dual loyalty," i.e., quite specifically, loyalty to both the USA and the Israeli governments, is politically advantageous to the USA or not. The answer obviously depends on your theory as to the political intentions of both states. However, it does NOT depend on your moral views, as all of you seem to imagine.
But everyone goes batshit about Mexican immigrant loyalty to Mexico, calling it unAmerican, and how-dare-they-wave-that-flag, and every unimaginable possible. But Israel gets a free pass? Jews get a free pass on this? What if Catholics had this 'thing' about the Vatican or Italy? What if one of our senior government officials wrote that Catholics worldwide must be separate in every country they occupy except the Vatican or Rome? And was in charge of war or national security and was instrumental in our attacking a country to benefit the Vatican? How long before you heard that uproar?
Witty: "I'm loyal to my family. I'm loyal to my employer. I'm loyal to my profession. I'm loyal to my home town. I am definitely loyal to my region."
How can you both loyal to Israel and the United States when their disconguity of interests implies that loyalty to one means disloyalty to the other?
Phil,
Another irony of your position is that it is very similar to the early neo-conservatives, that they determined that they renounced their radical humanism in favor of patriotism.
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"The merging of U.S. and Israeli interests is most concerning in public life."
That's the whole problem. Sometimes an Irish or Italian flag will be seen flying in our neighborhood. But Italy and Ireland don't receive aid or arms from the U.S., or demand that U.S. foreign policy be shaped around their needs, or seek in an organized manner to infiltrate the U.S. government with their dual nationals, indoctrinated to be as loyal to the old country as the new.
Before Israel was founded, anti-zionist Jews (who may have been the majority in the early 20th century) predicted that the creation of a Jewish state would bedevil diaspora Jews with allegations of dual loyalty. They were right, of course. But Israel exacerbates the problem by making such heavy demands on U.S. support, which virtually require it to colonize the U.S. government with its insiders to steer policy.
If Israel were a normal country — living in peace, within recognized borders, on its own money — dual loyalty would be a non-issue. But could the zionist state even survive, without the U.S. lifeline? My guess is no. And the obvious conclusion, if you've got a nonviable state on your hands, is to try something different, instead of "more of the same." Hijacking the U.S. government to serve the interests of a foreign country is not only ineffective, it's downright dangerous. One can get executed for that.
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"What if one of our senior government officials wrote that Catholics worldwide must be separate in every country they occupy except the Vatican or Rome?" — MR W.
That very issue arise during the 1960 presidential campaign. John Kennedy addressed it on 12 Sep 1960:
"I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16920600
JFK got elected by forecefully denying that he would allow his religion, the Vatican or the Pope to influence him in carrying out his public duties.
The horrible irony is that 48 years later, presidential candidates fall all over themselves to proclaim their eternal loyalty to Israel, in private meetings with "Jewish community leaders." Loyalty to a foreign religious state has become a prerequisite for candidacy.
John Kennedy said he wouldn't accept instructions from the National Council of Chruches on public policy. Thirty years later, George H.W. Bush had to write a humble-pie "Dear Shoshana" letter to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, profusely apologizing for failing to fund Israeli settlements as they had demanded. My, how far we have fallen!
repeating, single loyality and that loyality is to israel. america is used.
forgot. and with that single loyality, americans and others, non jewish, are expendible.
Philip:
I just read the J-Street website, and two things become immediately obvious. First, it's a diverse collection of (mostly)academics and rabbis who will be incapable of acting or inspiring anyone or any debate, and, Second, it recognizes JERUSALEM as the capital of ISRAEL.
Sounds fine to me.
the nation within a nation…zionist jewish americans who choose to be loyal to two countries and conflate the interest of both nations in order to justify their feelings.
http://www.atlargely.com/
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David's right. The quote, and the link:
"J Street believes that Israel’s capital is in Jerusalem and will be internationally recognized as such in the context of an agreed two-state solution."
http://www.jstreet.org/page/jerusalem
————
Man, talk about chutzpah … these zionoid crusaders, trying to pass themselves off as peace-lovers.
Well, now we know what the 'J' in 'J Street' stands for: JERUSALEM!
To whom or what does the Pledge Of Allegiance pertain? USA
school children once had to make this pledge. Similarly, new immigrants once had to make an oath to formally obtain USA citizenship.
Does that little flag pin on the lapel of so many politicans have any meaning?
You are conflating two different issues.
1) It is perfectly fine for Americans to support their ancestral homelands. Irish, Italian, Mexican, Albanian, Palestinian, Russian…
2) Israel has been pursuing flawed policies and using ineffective strategies. American Jews and other supporters of Israel should be advocating for Israel to pursue more effecitive policies that will result in peace with its neighbors.
I don't begrudge Palestinian-Americans for supporting their brethen in Gaza and the West Bank, but I don't condone their support of policies and strategies that won't lead to a peace resolution.
I also don't begrudge all the Chinese-Americans and Tibetan-Americans who are advocating for their respective ancestral homelands right now, but I won't support Chinese-American advocates of Chinese Imperalism.
"J Street believes that Israel’s capital is in Jerusalem …"
Why didn't they write "Israel's capital is Jerusalem" which would be the exclusive option; "is in Jerusalem" leaves a tiny and careful slot open to a Jerusalem being the capital of two states, East and West.
That wouldn't be bad, I think.
Phil, not only is your TNR link dead but it is also really hard to trace the article on TNR. Maybe that is a general problem. But google suggests the article is not in the database of TNR any longer.
Google search + "On the one hand, Rosenfeld, Harris, and others want to deny" Judis
http://tinyurl.com/6nf2xz
If the article's title was: "Split Personality", you can mend the link via the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace link:
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=19028&prog=zgp&proj=zusr
So, the flag pin means whatever anyone wants to read into it? Too much conflation of American interest with any other nation's interest is usually the subject of this blog.
Washington Post editorial editor Fred Hiatt condemns Jimmy Carter as a terrorist appeaser for speaking to Hamas:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/16/AR2008041603097.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
America went to war in Iraq because some Jews have dual loyalty to Israel…? Ha! Jews (and those obsessed with them) often get carried away with themselves.
The idea that Iraq has anything to do with Jewish dual loyalty being manifested by the neocon cabal is self-absorbed gibberish if not paranoid delusion.
Get your head out of your Jewish ass, Weiss. Nations go to war out of self-interest. Everything else is smoke and mirrors.
During the Wednesday last debate Reuters reported, Hillary said as Prez she'd offer to protect other Middle East nations additional to Israel if those countries forgo nuclear weapons of their own. She favors a Middle East security "umbrella" to create a deterrent against an Iranian threat.
She added, "We will let the Iranians know, that, yes, an attack on Israel would trigger massive retaliation (by the USA), but so would an attack on those (Arab) countries that are willing to go under the security umbrella and forswear their own nuclear ambitions."
Obama replied, "I will take no options off the table when it comes to preventing them from using nuclear weapons or obtaining nuclear weapons and that would include any threats directed at Israel, or any of our allies."
Hillary also advocated diplomatic engagement but said she would not meet with Ahmadinejad. While Obama said, "I believe that that includes direct talks with the Iranians, where we are laying out very clearly for them: Here are the issues that we find unacceptable, not only development of nuclear weapons, but also funding terrorist organizations"
Seems both democrat candidates, but especially Hillary, are also into the Imperial presidency Bush-to-McCain represents.
When did we extend NATO to the MIddle East? Who has nukes now over there? Don't the local nations have reasonable fear over there? When was the last time Iran attacked somebody first?
This public display of conniving ignorance on the part of our key leader wannabes makes me want to puke. How many Americans will see it for what it is? Not enough, I'm afraid.
We need a new Fourth Estate. The kind that brought us the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. But all we have is Phil and Haygood, brave souls reduced to this esoteric blog.
So now no one is allowed to endorse the idea that ANY PART of Jerusalem is Israel's capital? The J Street quote didn't say an "undivided Jerusalem," which are the code words of the right. They just said:
"J Street believes that Israel’s capital is in Jerusalem and will be internationally recognized as such in the context of an agreed two-state solution."
The two state solutions that have been proposed in recent years all call for East Jerusalem to be the capital of the Palestinian state. It is obvious what they are saying here.
But even the J Stree formulation is somehow not kosher to you people? Israel should have its capitai, in, uh, in Haifa? Or should it not have a capital? Oh, I forgot. It should not exist, so anything anyone says that treats it as real should be condemned…
"If Israel were a normal country — living in peace, within recognized borders, on its own money — dual loyalty would be a non-issue. But could the zionist state even survive, without the U.S. lifeline?"
This what I've always wondered. What happens when/if the fighting stops? Is there a viable stand-alone economy in place that doesn't rely on billions in US aid every year? What is their main industry?
There's no stinging barb at the end of this – I'm actually inviting someone to educate me.
per J street, will israel still be entitled to its tens of billions of welfare?
"There's no stinging barb at the end of this – I'm actually inviting someone to educate me."
Posted by: Polly | April 17, 2008 at 11:29 AM
sorry, cant educate you, but israel's pooch, the usa, hasnt been able to make it with all its wealth without 200-300years and still going of aggression and out right war.
UBM picked up an interesting interview with Cornel West on Al Jazeera English today. Outragous;)
http://undercoverblackman.blogspot.com/2008/04/cornel-west-on-barack-obama.html
direct YouTube link:
http://tinyurl.com/5t6l2y
"Lobby says good Americans spy for Israel"
http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_05_07/article.html
Gee, I sure hope David Cherson doesn't feel "offended" by the truth. Phil seems to be the only person of Jewish persuasion/birth/whatever that gets "it". Inevitably, the repercussions of this disloyalty will be very harsh for those practicing it.
While some may think these practices can continue indefinitely, the fact is, the path America is on is unsustainable, and eventually the SOG will hit the fan.
J-Street is to the Lobby as Olga Rutterschmidt is to Helen Golay. It's called the good-jewish-hag/bad-jewish-hag tactic.
As said by JH, cars, like nations, are driven by self-interest. Those who say "spot the jew behind the wheel!" often get carried away by the bumpers.
"We need a new Fourth Estate."
That's it, Charles. And guess what: we have it. Right here.
"I'm loyal to my family. I'm loyal to my employer. I'm loyal to my profession. I'm loyal to my home town."
Please, please, please for the sake of all of our blood pressures, Witty, could you just get a frickin' clue?
You are not the Undersecretary of Defense, or one of the chief U.S. negotiators for the Oslo Peace Accords, or the president's special envoy to the Middle East. Therefore, your amazing talent, having multiple loyaltygasms, is really of no interest or relevance.
"Get your head out of your Jewish ass, Weiss. Nations go to war out of self-interest. Everything else is smoke and mirrors."
I will give JH this, I think Phil misses the confluence-of-interests angle because he is too enamored with M&W, and they are establishmentarians who cannot make the necessary criticisms and linkages between 1) zionism 2) American foreign policy 3) American corporatist plutocracy.
The establishment is not 100% pro-zionist by force alone, there are significant incentives. Genocide has been a cashcow for many other empires before ours.
So no, it's not all about the Jews, but Phil is Jewish, and his angle is Jews played a major part in this, and he obviously (Witty notwithstanding) has a point.
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In the early 1980s, the UN Security Council rejected Israel's Basic Law proclaiming Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, and called upon member states to remove their diplomatic missions from Jerusalem. The General Assembly reaffirmed these resolutions as recently as December 2005.
http://tinyurl.com/5o48my
Most countries, including the U.S., do in fact maintain their embassies outside Jerusalem. Just like Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank, Israel's proclamation of Jerusalem as its capital has been proclaimed null and void by the UN Security Council, and is not recognized by the rest of the world.
Under these circumstances, for J Street to side with Israel in defiance of both U.S. and UN policy is inherently mischievous and hardline. Why does a self-proclaimed peace-loving group feel it necessary to stir this pot? Presumably, because they are zionists first, Americans second, and peace lovers last of all.
It will be much easier for Congress to investigate those with dual loyalty when it passes this bill (already approved in the House):
S.1959
Title: A bill to establish the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen Collins, Susan M. [ME] (introduced 8/2/2007) Cosponsors (1)
Related Bills: H.R.1955
Latest Major Action: 8/2/2007 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
——————————————————————————–
SUMMARY AS OF:
8/2/2007–Introduced.
Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 – Amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to add a new section concerning the prevention of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.
Establishes within the legislative branch the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism to: (1) examine and report on facts and causes of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States; (2) survey methodologies implemented by foreign nations to prevent such radicalization and terrorism; and (3) build upon, bring together, and avoid unnecessary duplication of related work done by other entities toward such goal.
Directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish or designate a university-based Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States to assist federal, state, local, and tribal government homeland security officials in preventing violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism in the United States. Requires the Secretary to ensure that activities to prevent ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism do not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, and civil liberties of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.
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"What happens when/if the fighting stops? Is there a viable stand-alone economy in place that doesn't rely on billions in US aid every year? What is their main industry?" — Polly
Some of your questions about Israel's economy are answered in this Wikipedia article. It's definitely a "developed country" profile, with plenty of "knowledge workers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel
Even if U.S. aid is categorized as broadly as possible — $3 billion for Israel, $2 billion for Egypt, $1 billion for Jordan, Gaza, World Bank programs in the West Bank, etc. — the $6 billion total is still only 3% of Israel's $200 billion GDP.
Losing 3% of GDP would be painful — it would mean a recession for sure — but hardly fatal. Renouncing the aid would do wonders to quell the resentment that Americans feel about endlessly sending money to a rich country that doesn't need it.
I have to think that keeping the aid flowing is a symbolic need. It "shows the love," just as a well-to-do spouse expects costly birthday and holiday gifts from his/her partner. It's also the case that once a government program gets established, it's almost impossible to stop it. The U.S. military maintained a strategic helium reserve for 60 years after the blimps stopped flying. So it's almost child's play for the Lobby to extract aid with the logic, "You funded us last year, and we're still a good cause, so you should fund us again this year." Sad but true.
Jim:
Thanks for the economic data, of which many people who post here seem to lose sight.
Israel is relatively rich now, and doesn't need official U.S. aid money.
The issue of dual loyalty was batted about on this blog maybe a half year ago–you can find it easily. There you can find many nation's parsing rules on the law of return of their various peoples.
At the time Witty brought up an analogy. (Witty deserves credit for hanging in there, at the least to give readers a good taste of Zionist thinking, which is important since Phil's blog is one of the very few places those left out can come, frustrated as they are by MSM and what they really pay taxes for).
If memory serves, and this was around the time I found Phil's blog, Witty likened the USA to a corporation, with the usual assumption of shareholder rights and management's obligations.
First, Witty's analogy strikes well in the sense that BushCo's every action and even all three major presidential candidates as of last Wednesday, by direct deduction from what they said agree with the understanding of the USA Presidential as a CEO, or Imperial president. One need not look further than the ongoing (congressionally undelared, but resolution supported and always funded) wars or police actions to see since WW2 this is how it actually is for all of us.
A CEO of an American corporation's job is to increase the value of his corporation's stock on the market. I need merely point to Enron to show you this is a short term charade. The CEO's are good for the CEO while they last, i.e., look at the trajectory disparity between them and the average American's. We all know this.
For public corporations in the USA, there is the shareholder proposal. It relies on having some % of the total shareholder stock. But, going deeper, there is also the different classifications of stock owned. Now, we are getting into who actually controls the semi-private yet public corporation, for example, the NYT, a key bugle for public address.
The overlap of message to the masses and monetary gain varies, but what we know is the average USA citizen has no radar unconnected to the whale's signals. Money is power in the USA. On the one hand, it is most democratic as it does not depend (in theory at least) on born blood or class privilege; on the other hand, those things in fact are most important in the sense that
birthright and money happenstance mean so much. The struggle continues to make a real democracy.
We are not there. The USA as currently represented, not only by elected peeps, but especially by appointed peeps, abhors refererendums. The USA basically originated the Bill Of Rights.
Now we are faced with a great issue: How long will the USA allow
minority rights to trump majority rights? No nation has ever faced this before.
Not only is this the first time in history, but what it means is clouded over by the dirth of a real Fourth Estate.
Demography is not only very important to Israel as it determines
all Israel's policies, but it is equally important to the USA. What's really amazing is that the USA officially holds and funds opposing polices when you compare our Middle East foreign policy and our USA domestic policy.
None of the three majority presidential candidates address this inconsistency.
I actually dug many foxholes whilea teenager in the US Army. I am not in that sense speaking in rhetoric. Please excuse my typos above.
Criminals of the world, unite and take over
Tel Aviv, it turns out, is one of two major prostitution hubs in the Mideast. (The other is that paradise of unregulated economic activity, Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.) There, in a brothel, Glenny witness a "pug-ugly" American teenager and two of his buddies give the staff a skeptical once-over. "You see them all the time," his friend explains. "Their parents pack 'em off from the Upper West Side to Israel with a book filled with the phone numbers of synagogues, rabbis, and shuls, and a wad of cash. And then the minute they get here, they head for the whorehouses."
Glenny finds this a sad descent from the socially committed Israel of decades past, the land of kibbutzim, social service idealism and prime ministers who lived in humble two-bedroom apartments (as opposed to the "huge" farm owned by Ariel Sharon). He traces the change to an influx of Russian mobsters in the 1990s. Along with the Chechens and Georgians, groups who were also forced to the "twilight periphery of the Soviet Union," Jews are overrepresented among Russia's oligarchs and gangsters. Israel (where they were entitled to a passport) offered a relatively tranquil haven, complete with banking systems designed to accommodate foreign money. But once the native-born Israelis got a load of the immigrants' sybaritic lifestyles, they wanted the same for themselves, and the ranks and ambitions of the homegrown Israeli mob swelled.
cont http://www.salon.com/books/review/2008/04/16/international_crime/
Teddy the issue is not Jerusalem as the capital but whether Israel will negotiate a separation that allows the Palestinians their capital. If we recognize Israel's right to Jerusalem now, they will likely declare the entire city as theirs and deny the Palestinians.
Israel must first reach an agreement with the Palestinians on the future of the city and if the Palestinians agree to firmly set borders, then few here would object if Israel moved its capital. But you knew that now didn't you. Just wanted to sound the role of victim again.
Anonymous: "As said by JH, cars, like nations, are driven by self-interest. Those who say "spot the jew behind the wheel!" often get carried away by the bumpers."
I wish it were true that America's foreign policy was always driven by self-interest, but George Washington could see more than two hundred years ago (as he wrote in his farewell address) that when Americans let their passions for foreign countries get the best of them "the policy and the will of one country (he means America)" finds itself "subjected to the policy and will of another."
Ruth Wisse kokht kugel mit khazershmaltz!
http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2008/03/wisse-kokht-kugl-mit-khazershmaltz.html
More on Ruth Wisse:
http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2007/09/jews-and-power-versus-israel-lobby-and.html
" Hijacking the U.S. government to serve the interests of a foreign country is not only ineffective, it's downright dangerous. One can get executed for that."
I think it should get one executed. A relative, who spoke to me about his experiences in the Korean War, told me that he witnessed American troops being ordered shot by other American troops for not fighting, or not pressing forward.
He's dead now, but I take his word as honest, since he never had to tell me a thing- and I've heard similar stories from others.
My point is that if young kids who are sent to war (in this case drafted) can be shot as traitors for being terrified, or for being in a situation that they disagree with after reaching an understanding of what they are actually doing, then active and willing traitors, serving another nation's interests, who are doing massive damage, and causing far more loss of life, should certainly face execution if convicted of treason. Instead they aren't even questioned.
Phil,
Any thoughts on the Kevin MacDonald witch hunt at csulb?
Here is the crime that Jews with dual loyalties may have committed. I am not sure exactly what force means in this context.
TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 115 > § 2384
§ 2384. Seditious conspiracy
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
Israeli consulate supports conspiracy against rights.
http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2008/03/subjugating-american-muslims-to-israel.html
Well, I think the thing you're missing here is that you didn't mention Jewish politicians. Or is that too obvious. Joe Leiberman would be exhibit A. Schumer and Rahm, who recruited this new class of dems who don't seem to really want to end the war, would be exhibit B. Your thoughts?
There is plenty of "dual loyalty" going on in the US. How about allegiances to the Islamic Umma, or neo-Nazi allegiance to Germany, or hispanic allegiance to Mexico, etc. Curiously these dual loyalties don't seem to bother you.
Bush took us into Iraq to save his Saudi buddies that have long ties with the Bush family and felt threatened by Saddam. Getting rid of Saddam actually helped Israel's biggest threat, Iran, and Israel was dubious about Bush's plans, for the record. But it is always helpful to have the scapegoat of choice available to pin a blunder on, isn't it?
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