News and Politics

Neturei Karta, a Zionism-denouncing, Palestinian-embracing subculture within ultra-Orthodox Judaism, is suddenly sharing the spotlight in the antiwar movement. [Salon]

Although my family background is Jewish, I never considered myself Jewish. I rejected religion at a very early age and I’ve always considered myself more or less agnostic or atheist.

I don’t support Israel for a different set of reasons. First of all, the whole idea of a religious state, whether it’s Jewish, Chrsitian, or Islamic just plain bothers me a lot. Also, I don’t believe Israel is completely blameless in the conflicts. I see many cases under Sharon’s rule in which Israel attacks innocent Palestinians as the aggressor.

An interview with Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch. Roth describes how his organization is trying to pressure the U.S. to wage as humanitarian a war as possible. To this end, HRW has not taken a position for or against a war, but rather on how a possible war should be waged. But this raises the question of to what extent the U.S. is still concerned with international humanitarian law. As Michael Byers of Duke University warns, “some U.S. politicians have begun to think of war, not as the high-risk recourse of last resort, but as an attractive foreign policy option in times of domestic scandal or economic decline… When war is seen as an ordinary tool of foreign policy – ‘politics by other means’ – political and financial considerations impinge on the balance between military necessity and humanitarian concerns.” [metafilter.com]

A Fox television show where people who have been unable to find happiness agree to get married to perfect strangers picked for them by phone-in viewers. This is a real marriage, too — rings, “I do,” certificates, the whole nine yards.

Whenever you see this advertised, remind yourself that this is the institution that is so central to society, so crucial to morals and the advancement of the human race, that conservatives – including those on Fox News – propose may even need a constituaional amendement to insure that it never, ever, ever becomes possible for two people of the same gender to experience it.

Also note that these “Defense of Marriage” losers never, ever propose that people like these shouldn’t be allowed to marry – just maybe that these people should be prevented from getting divorced. In fact, conservatives in several states are trying to make divorces harder to get, to “strengthen” marriage.

So, let’s see: male-female couples can get married whenever, for whatever reason, and gain hundreds of legal rights and privileges, and conservatives are only concerned that they might stop being married. Same-gender couples can’t get married for any reason.

“Special rights” my hiney. [Life and Deatherage]

Yeah! I find those kind of shows extremely offensive, yet they don’t seem to bother the conservatives who are always screaming about the “sanctity” of marriage.

Man arrested for ‘peace’ T-shirt – Mar. 4, 2003 [Daypop Top 40]

This really pisses me off. Is this what our country is turning into?

General Motors, the world’s largest automaker (and one of the largest corporations on the planet) has been targeted in the past by activists like Ralph Nader and pundits like Arianna Huffington for environmental and safety issues with their vehicles. Now we can add Jerry Kirk to the list. [Kuro5hin.org]

Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo? From U.S. Diplomat John Brady Kiesling’s resignation letter to Colin Powell. [metafilter.com]

“You rats! You stinking rats who hide in the sewers! You think you can go after my income? You think you can kill my advertisers? You think I’m Dr. Laura? You think I’m gonna roll over like a pussy?…”
Thus did MSNBC’s newest hire, Michael Savage, react to the information that GLAAD is meeting with the head of programming to protest his hiring. What’s more, he feels the Bush administration owes him an investigation of GLAAD and any other group that protests his hiring, because “I have millions of people who vote. Mr. Bush wants to get re-elected, and just consider me a politician at that point. I’m going to ask for a trade in favor. If they keep it up, my favor is going to be I want these groups investigated.”
Some of Michael Savage’s comments regarding America, homosexuals, and the state of the country can be read or listened to here or at his Paul Revere Society site linked above. [metafilter.com]

My friend Roger just sent me this article.

Eric Margolis writes:

Now, I have no love for Saddam’s sinister, brutal regime. The last time I was in Baghdad, in late 1990, the Iraqi secret police threatened to hang me as a spy after I discovered a group of technicians and scientists who had been secretly sent by the British government to produce anthrax and other germ warfare weapons for Iraq to use against Iran.

But what I dislike even more than Saddam’s nasty regime are government lies and propaganda.

Since 9/11, Americans have been subjected to the most intense propaganda campaign from their government since World War I. Much of the mainstream U.S. media have been intimidated by the Bush administration into unquestioningly amplifying its party line.

Or, in the worst tradition of yellow, jingoist journalism, they act as cheerleaders for war.

I am reminded of the sycophantic Soviet media during the days of Chairman Leonid Brezhnev.

The American public, often wobbly about geography, history and international affairs, has been alternatively terrified and enraged by bare-faced lies that Iraq was about to attack America with nuclear weapons or germs, and was a secret ally of al-Qaida.

A shocking two-thirds of Americans mistakenly believe Iraq staged the 9/11 attacks.

A surging wave of anti-Islamic hate, promoted in part by Bush’s allies on the loony far right, and administration repression of Muslims, frighteningly recalls Europe’s growing anti-Semitism of the early 1930s.

These are the reasons why a majority of Americans still support a war of aggression against Iraq, though more and more question the president’s motives.

Plastic::Etcetera::Queer: “”Wayne LaRue Smith and Daniel Skahen want to adopt the two young boys who have lived with them as foster children for two years. But Smith and Skahen live in Florida, where gay people are the only group categorically restricted from adopting kids.” [Plastic]

Dave Koehler of PhillyBurbs.com has written an outstanding summary of the logical fallacies used by the Bush administration to try to convince the world at large of the necessity of invading Iraq in the absence of any sort of compelling evidence. If you think Bush is full of it, but couldn’t put your finger on how, exactly, read the article. If you think Bush is making a good case for invading Iraq, read the article anyway. [Kuro5hin.org]