DISQUS

"Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead. [Applause] When independent- thinking people (and here I do not include the corporate media) begin to rally under flags, when writers, painters, musicians, film makers suspend their judgment and blindly yoke their art to the service of the "Nation," it's time for all of us to sit up and worry.



To call someone "anti-American", indeed to be anti-American, (or for that matter, anti-Indian or anti-Timbuktuan) is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those the establishment has set out for you. If you're not a Bushie you're a Taliban. If you don't love us, you hate us. If you're not Good, you're Evil. If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists."



-Arundhati Roy

Great read

Gee, yeah, they offered so much to Arafat...A noncontiguous state of checkpoints that made a 'state' look like Swiss cheese...Nevermind no Right of Return for what the Amnesty International has listed as the single greatest refugee crisis in the world, the Palestinians who have been displaced.



And Israel has never kept any of the 'promises' or accords they've agreed to making them the most disingenuous state on the planet.



Fortunately, not all Jews are this narrowly and demonically focused.



"Over the decades there have been uprisings, wars, intifadas. Tens of thousands have lost their lives. Accords and treaties have been signed. Cease-fires declared and violated. But the bloodshed doesn't end. Palestine still remains illegally occupied. Its people live in inhuman conditions, in virtual Bantustans, where they are subjected to collective punishments, twenty-four hour curfews, where they are humiliated and brutalized on a daily basis. They never know when their homes will be demolished, when their children will be shot, when their precious trees will be cut, when their roads will be closed, when they will be allowed to walk down to the market to buy food and medicine. And when they will not. They live with no semblance of dignity. With not much hope in sight. They have no control over their lands, their security, their movement, their communication, their water supply. So when accords are signed, and words like "autonomy" and even "statehood" bandied about, it's always worth asking: What sort of autonomy? What sort of State? What sort of rights will its citizens have?



What lessons should we draw from this tragic conflict? Is it really impossible for Jewish people who suffered so cruelly themselves - more cruelly perhaps than any other people in history - to understand the vulnerability and the yearning of those whom they have displaced? Does extreme suffering always kindle cruelty? What hope does this leave the human race with? What will happen to the Palestinian people in the event of a victory? When a nation without a state eventually proclaims a state, what kind of state will it be? What horrors will be perpetrated under its flag? Is it a separate state that we should be fighting for or, the rights to a life of liberty and dignity for everyone regardless of their ethnicity or religion?"



-Arundhati Roy

Yes, absolutely...Debt of gratitude courtesy of the world's biggest lapdog (Insert any British PM)...World is sooo much safer now, country is in such great shape and we're sooo safe now (Save the erosion of civil liberties, privacy & environment).

You have to first buy into the argument that Osama or anyone else is the root of 'our' problems before any 'praise' can be directed anywhere...That or you have to consider the irony of the ying & yang of money allocation under Georgie...Oil industries, defense industries and corporate America are curiously showing great bottom lines while the rest of America is suffering in every way imaginable not to mention the wonderful court of world opinion (Outside our puppet governments, i.e. UK) that sees us as the most dangerous country on the planet...But, sure, debt of gratitude...for setting America back a millenium.

And the next time we see Americans who are captured by foreign governments and organizations being paraded around in blindfolds or tortured by 'enhanced and persuasive' techniques, I'm sure we'll simply have to all again seek out Georgie for our gratitude.

AIPAC is a big reason for all the problems...Always a refreshing thing to see one of the U.S.'s most powerful lobby not be about actual issues that impact a majority of Americans but about a foreign state.

With a population exceeding Israel's by more than a million, imagine if a lobby group for Azerbaijan dictated foreign policy, silenced debate on the single largest and most volatile issue facing the world today (Occupation of Palestine) and essentially held hostage 98% of all politcians in this country...How absurd would that be?...Well, it happens everyday with AIPAC

Until there's an honest/truthful debate on the illegal occupation of Palestine, there will never be peace there.

Kudos for Carter actually engaging Hamas...And while it is not covered by corporate media, a lot of jewish people around the globe are fully aware of the apartheid state being forged by the current Israeli state and are vocally outspoken on the issue.

And why isn't George mentioned in this as someone to be indicted on war crimes as well?