Government Spying 5-16-2013

16, May 2013                          Government Spying

The Justice Department’s admission of its seizure of home and cellphone records of almost 100 Associated Press reporters is the most significant intrusion of freedom of the press in decades and sends a chilling effect on the future of our fragile democracy.  Reporters and whistle blowers will now be loath to challenge the excesses or misdeeds of the Obama Administration lest they encounter a blowback and find themselves clothed in orange jumpsuits and ankle shackles – all in the name of protecting national security. Many governments in the world jail dissidents under the same banner.  

This follows other draconian measures crafted to silence whistleblowers, the Espionage Act which could eviscerate an independent free press, the FISA Amendment Act, which allows for warrantless wiretapping, the National Defense Authorization Act, which permits stripping American citizens of due process and jailing them to indefinite detention. Remember, the Espionage Act was used against Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers which revealed years of government deceit in perpetuating the disastrous Vietnam War which sent thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese to an early death.  America has a long history of conducting a massive PR war on its people to shield it from embarrassing decisions.  The recent web of deceit perpetrated by the Bush Administration on bogus claims of WMD’s in Iraq should be stark reminder.

If the media – our government watchdogs are hampered in their independent role we are doomed as a democracy.   

Holocaust Museum 5-10-2013

10, May 2013            Holocaust Museum

I applaud you efforts to keep alive the memory of the appalling Jewish holocaust. Tragically, the Israeli government with the aid of our government is committing horrific crimes in Israel – a country that was born on spams of mindless terrorist attacks by the Irgun and the Haganah on the indigenous population, namely the Palestinians.

Three great documentaries shed new light on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"The Gatekeepers" is a collective narrative of six former heads of Israel’s internal security who voice their frustration with successive Israeli government policies. All six heads are now critical of the methods they were assigned to use and they warned that successive governments have undermined Israel’s future by refusing to make peace. A former head, Carmi Gillon, admits that “We are making the lives of millions unbearable, into prolonged human suffering. Another -  Avraham Shalom adds, “ we have become a brutal occupation force

 “Five Broken Cameras”  - tells the story of Emad Burnat, a Palestinian farmer, who partnered with an Israeli film maker Guy Emad to chronicle Emad’s life in his village, Bil’in. Israeli Defense Forces tried to halt the filming by breaking a number of cameras – hence the title. This is now available from Netflix.

Finally, an American Jew, Anna Baltzer, the granddaughter of Holocaust refugees, and an award-winning lecturer and author (http://vimeo.com/6977999), traveled to Israel to capture the lives of ordinary Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. She has appeared on ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’, and  lectured at more than 500 universities, schools, religious institutions, and policy institutes around the world with her acclaimed presentation, "Life in Occupied Palestine: Eyewitness Stories & Photos."

I urge you to set aside a part of your funds for the construction of a Palestinian and Native American holocaust museums to remind us of the horrific crimes committed by Jews in Israel and the early settlers in America and incidentally Canada, against their indigenous population. Finally the Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodia should also erect holocaust museums for the crimes committed by the US.