ThoughtMechanics

According to an article at aclu.org, the U.S.government is denying entry into the country people whose politics aren’t in line with their own.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union today released new documents that indicate the government is broadly interpreting and using a controversial Patriot Act power known as the “ideological exclusion” provision to block people from entering the country. The ACLU is concerned that the provision is increasingly being used to target foreign scholars and others whose politics the government disfavors.

“The American public suffers when our government abuses anti-terrorism laws to shut out voices and ideas that it doesn’t want us to hear,” said ACLU attorney Melissa Goodman. “America has a rich tradition of robust academic debate. The government dishonors that tradition when it censors ideas at the border.”

Read the rest of the article here. Hit tip to James Elwood for dumping this into my del.icio.us account.

In a remarkable assesment of the American Jewish Lobby and its relationship to the Bush administration, two political scientists, Stephen Walt from Harvard and John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago concluded that the Bush administration’s support for Israel and its related effort to spread democracy throughout the Middle East have “inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized U.S. security.”

As noted in this op-ed article in the Washington Post, this was taken as an attack on a ‘holy cow’ and more or less condemned by those whose interests were exposed.

Perhaps their most startling conclusion is that the American Jewish Lobby, or AIPAC, has managed to divert American foreign policy very far away from what America’s national interest is. According to the two professors, the war in Iraq “was due in large part to the Lobby’s influence.”

Now that same influence is steadily used to exert pressure on the administration in order to act aggressively and belligerently towards Iran. In their assesment they conclude that the gain for Israel is that “Israel’s enemies get weakened or overthrown, Israel gets a free hand with the Palestinians, and the United States does most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding and paying.”

I have stated in previous posts on this blog that American foreign policy is by and large at fault for the current mess in which both the US and Israel find themselves. The rise of Islamic militancy can be directly traced to both US and Israeli decisions to support Islamic groups as a counterweight to both communism and Arab nationalism. Today, the US and Israel, and the rest of the west in their wake, are reaping the ‘benefits’ of these decisions that were, to a large extent, based on fundamentalist Christian and Jewish thinking.

It is no secret that the Christian Right has supported Israel, beginning in the 70’s, on religious grounds. In their neo-crusade thinking, people like Jerry Falwell and other Christian conservatives of the day saw Jewish rule over the Holy Land as divinely ordained and a prelude to the Second Coming of Christ. George Bush, to whom God talks, apperently, is ideologically bound to this portion of the Christian Right.

It is also no secret that for decades, at least since the 1967 war in which the West Bank and Gaza were occupied, most of the settlement in these areas by Israelis have been driven by a messianic vision of restoring some kind of Kingdom of David or Solomon. Much of the emotion and vitality behind the will to settle in these parts, even though they were occupied Palestinian territories, was clearly religious in origin, regardless of the political decisions to allow them to happen and to in fact use them as policy.

Islam is seen as an expansionist religious ideology. Speaking to many Israelis, I have been informed on many occasions that I don’t know Islam, that they have plans to conquer the world and that they will not stop until the whole world is Muslim. On each such occasion I feel that they are talking of Christianity, since in my Christian upbringing I had often heard the same about the Ecumenic And Catholic validity of Christ’s message. Is the spread of ‘Democracy’ tied to this message?

Post by Chris Voidis
www.yioni.com/counter-spin.html

The media is termed as such for a very important reason; a reason that these days seems long forgotten. You see, the media is supposed to be the medium with which the citizens of a democracy communicate en masse with their governments. The media’s primary role in a society is to be a watchdog that keeps the government in check. In instances throughout history where the media has failed in that regard, fascism is rampant.

In authoritarian regimes, the media is used as a tool to tell the citizens that the oppression they put up with is a necessary evil to maintaining their lives. It happened in Germany, it happened in the Soviet Union, it happened in Italy, and most disconcertingly, it seems to be happening in North America as we speak.

With corporate ownership, the mainstream television and radio media are influenced to a very high degree by corporate bigwigs who often benefit from things like minority oppression, dissention and war. This leads to a media that (as famous linguist and media critic Noam Chomsky would say) becomes lapdogs of the government instead of watchdogs.

With the advent of the internet in the last few decades, hope has been restored that governments in supposedly democratic nations such as the U.S. would once again have a public media to deal with. The internet, as we all know here in the blogosphere, is an unbelievably powerful tool of influence for ordinary citizens. Anyone in the world with access to the internet can potentially have a voice. This is media for ordinary citizens and has the potential to make governments accountable on a scale that was impossible in the past.

Apparently the U.S. government has also thought of this and wants it brought to an end.

As I’m sure most have heard, the U.S. Senate is reviewing whether or not to allow Internet Service Providers to restrict what we view on the internet and essentially marry carriage with content. I know all of us heard the idiotic comments made by Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) which shows that certain members of the U.S. Senate truly have no idea what the internet is capable of.

The point of all of this is that if we allow the corporate world to constrict the internet the way they have constricted all other forms of the media then we may have given up our last viable chance at true democracy. This is something that should be near the top in the list of priorities for us as active citizens. We need to ensure that the net remains free as it is imperative to democracy as we know it.

After all, “the internets is just a series of tubes, and if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled, and if they’re filled when you put your message in….??? ah, to hell with it.

By Travis Reitsma of The Rose City Rant

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the effort to come to terms with its history. Let’s face it, Israel came into existence out of the carving up of a land that had already been carved and recarved by succesive European intrusions. The last European masters of Palestine were the British who, for geopolitical reasons of their own, wanted to divide the area in such a way so as to maintain influence after their departure.

Thus the state of Israel was allowed to be created. Until we in the west stop and think for a while about what this means, we will always misunderstand Palestinian and Arab hatred for Israel and Zionism. Of course, this does not mean that we should deny Israel and Israelis the right to exist. Israel already exists and that is fine by me. I think most in the West would agree.

The issue, though, is whether Israel is a state that has the right to deny over one million Palestinians the right to return to their homeland. The usual answer to this is that if they were to do so, then the nature of the ‘jewish’ state would be altered and therefore this is unacceptable to Israelis. Well, that is tough. But it might be the only choice in the end.

For those who care to remember, the failure of the PLO’s negotiations based on the Oslo accords was due to this point exactly. The Palestinians insist that refugees return to their home and that Jerusalem serve as the capital of the Palestinian state.

Israelis will have nothing to do with the above proposal and as long as they refuse to deal with that, they will always have to deal with terror/resistance.

Looking over todays’s articles in the news, it is evident that Israel’s supporters and spokespeople appeal to our sense of ‘right’ by saying ‘look, we withdrew from Gaza and Lebanon but they still attack us.’ Further, they promote this as something that the Israelis have done out of the kindness of their hearts. But this is far from reality.

On the surface, this sounds reasonable. Yet, if we scratch it a bit, we will see that the West Bank and East Jerusalem are still under occupation. What do the Israelis expect? Do they expect the Palestinians in Gaza to rejoice at their freedom and forget that the West Bank is still under occupation? Or do the Israelis expect the Plaestinians in Gaza to say, ‘oh well, at least we are free, let’s forget about all our bretheren in the West Bank. Let them figure it out.’

The Israeli response to legitimate Palestinian resistance (and Lebanese too, there are still outstanding issues there) is, as always, diproportionate and reactive. Hardline tactics have never really worked before, and they will not work now. Palestinian resistance will only become more sophisticated, extremism and fundamentalism become more entrenched, while the character of Israeli society will also become affected (as it already has) and drift further and further from being a Jewish state to that of being a neo-fascist one with little relation to much that is wonderful, humane and spiritual in judaism…

For the latest, visit sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Chris Voidis
www.yioni.com/counter-spin.html

Here’s one more reason why Myspace is lame….

After hearing Sen. Ted Stevens’ now infamous description of the internet as a “series of tubes,” Andrew Raff sang the senator’s words over a folksy ditty and anonymously posted it to MySpace.com, where about 2,500 people listened to the tune, thanks to a link from one of the net’s top blogs.

On Tuesday, MySpace canceled the TedStevensFanClub account, telling Raff that the social-networking site, now owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., had received a “credible complaint of your violation of the MySpace Terms of Services.”

Hmm, now that myspace is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, it seems like they will be taking a more active interest in what people say on myspace. Very old media indeed.

Since we are changing our look on August 1, 2006, I’ve decided to release the current theme to the community. The theme is called Liquid Black and can be found on our themes page.

The theme comes with a few plugins that NEED TO BE INSTALLED before activiating the theme. These include limit-post, Ultimate Tag Warrior, Brian’s Latest Comments, FlickrRSS and subscribe to comments.

Just drop them in your plugins directory and activate from the admin menu. After you’ve done that, you can activate the theme. If you’re new to wordpress and don’t know how to install a theme, look here.

Comment here if you have any problems (I did this rather quickly, so I may have forgotten something–in fact, I’m not even sure if it validates…). Have fun!

Mark McGrath of Inertia Web Design came up with the winning design submission for the Thought Mechanics redesign contest. Sorry, you can’t see it yet, but we are planning on launching the new design on August 1, 2006.

The redesign contest wasn’t as big of a hit as the Squible Logo contest, which received a whopping 44 entries. Probably because designing an entire website is a little more involved than designing a logo. Be that as it may, we had a ton of inquiries, but only 4 submissions by two different people. I’d like to thank Headset Options for taking the time to submit THREE entries.

When we launch the redesign, we will also be introducing channels. Channels are going to be different sections of thought mechanics dedicated to individual topics run by different people. So far we have 7 channels–design, environment, money, movies, music, parenting, and technology. The main site will keep its focus on politics while mixing in posts from the different channels.

We are open to adding more channels, so if you can think of a channel that you would like to be the author of, let us know! Channels authors who get advertising on their channel will split the profits with TM. For instance, if Matt Russell, who will be heading up our music channel, can get someone to pay for $1000 worth of advertising on his channel, he just made 500 bucks. Food for thought, aye?

I’d also like to give a big thanks to CSS Mania, for sponsoring our design contest. They did us a huge solid and I’m sure the response would have been non-existent without their help!

Claim their local forces fully able to stand up against new Iraqi Army —

In a video press release broadcast by the Al Jazeera television network, leaders of the insurgent uprising in Iraq announced today that fighting men and military advisors from neighboring Iran, Pakistan and other Muslim countries are being recalled ahead of schedule, and that total withdrawal of all foreign assistance is expected before year’s end.

“We don’t need their help any more,??? an insurgency spokesman said. “Our policy has always been that the foreign brothers would stand down and withdraw as soon as the Iraqi brothers are able to stand up on their own against the infidels and the new Iraqi army. Our Iraqi brothers are standing up very quickly.???

Reached for comment, a Pentagon spokesman derided the insurgents’ claim. “Their training program is nowhere near as effective as ours,??? Major General William Fitzhaggerty scoffed. “We are confident that Iraqi Army forces will be standing up to the insurgents well ahead or our own timetable. More than half of the Iraqi infantry battalions are standing up already, and most of the rest have achieved at least a low squat or semi-crouch.???

In other news, on Wall Street the value of stock in Halliburton Industries rose sharply today as investors reacted to the announcement that sales of Halliburton’s do-it-yourself garage door opener kits have increased dramatically in Iraq since introduction of the new SR-72 model, which features an improved 1/2-horsepower “whisper??? motor and six dozen programmable wireless remotes.

————–
Richard Galli
The Galli Report
better than news any day
http://www.gallireport.com

“Israel, and you who call yourself Israel, the Church that calls itself Israel, and the revolt that calls itself Israel, and every nation chosen to be a nation—none of these lands is yours, all of you are thieves of holiness, all of you at war with Mercy.???

-Leonard Cohen

We understand how a traumatic childhood, with its psychic pressures of repressed retaliation, can create a violent adult. Few countries have had a more terrible childhood than Israel. Birthed in pogrom and holocaust, it achieved adolescence in war, war and war.

Now, it is a strapping, invincible adult with formidable friends. Alas, is still wants a certain maturity. It lacks the grown-up sagacity to choose freedom from the negative influences of its formative years. As a result, like the victim of childhood abuse that it is, it reacts instinctually to the slightest provocation with quite disproportionate shows of force, picking schoolyard brawls with the kids that once bullied it.

Israel, you’ve nothing more to prove. You’re strong now. You’re safe now. Nobody’s going to put you in a concentration camp or drive you into the sea. Extend the hand of magnanimity, use your strength for peace, before you create an enemy too mighty for even you and your redoubtable ally.

From Amusis

When ‘world columnists’ at the Washington Post who are ’senior associates’ at such places as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace come out with cynical articles such as his ‘Giving Futility its Chance’, then one is left wondering whether we have actually slipped into an Orwellian nightmare without having noticed.

Mr. Robert Kagan, who I am sure has peace on his mind, very smugly puts himself in George Bush’s mind and more or less says that Bush is on course for another American military adventure in the Middle East. This time the intended victim is Iran. Bush has made up his mind that he will not go down as the American President who let the “mullahs have the bomb”.

Further, in this “profoundly unserious international environment”, Bush knows that diplomacy will fail yet again, just as it did in Iraq, and so he can afford to show that he is willing to let diplomacy have its chance. After all, the more he postpones a military attack on Iran, the better it will look on him since he can ride the tide of popularity and then exit the scene when the going gets tough.

It appears that Mr. Kagan has not really given any thought to what will happen after any military attack on Iran. But then again, who thought much about the ‘after’ in Iraq? In any case, Mr. Kagan takes for granted that Iran is in fact a guilty party. But a closer reading of the subtext of his article also reveals that, guilty or not, Iranians are not worthy of having the kind of ‘goodies’ that more serious people, (Americans and Israelis for example) are deserving enough to have.

Apparently, Mr. Kagan is doing his bit for peace in the best way that men and women of his ilk know how: by preparing (and hoping) for war.

Mr. Kagan must have gotten a divorce from reality, since he shows consistently in his articles that he is incappable of comprehending the situation in the Middle East. But then again, I am sure that Mr. Kagan has excellent sources…it’s just that his duty calls on him to say what it is that he says…or at least his handlers do.

But let’s get serious. Iran has proven that it is capable of building a more or less home-grown nuclear program that can give it both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. The West cannot rely forever on containment of this technology in order to keep it out of the hands of the ‘bad’ guys. What this means is that a new model is required in order to set the tone for the rest of this new century.

This new model must take into consideration that there can be no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ guys. This type of dichotomy only still works in North America because, despite it’s technological advances, it is still a bit behind in terms of cultural sophistication at the highest levels. The idea of ‘pariah states’ and ‘axis of evil’ is a Hollywood production that has run its course.

To give a blunt example, the Soviet Union was at one time labeled as the ‘evil empire’. So what? It had thousands of nuclear warheads, and Russia today still continues to do so. For every ‘evil’ thing Russia has done, someone can easily come up with an American counterpart. And as far as pariah states are concerned, the US fits the bill just fine, if one looks at the war in Iraq objectively.

The difference though, between ‘evil empires’ and ‘evil states’ such as Iran or North Korea or Syria, is that the Soviet Union and China were considered and treated as equals. This of course was due to theior having the ‘bomb’. This means that as long as countries such as Iran, North Kore and Syria do not have the bomb, then the US and Israel do not need to treat them as equals. Because if they were to have to treat them as equals, then they would have to address their legitimate grievances. Here is where it all pivots, on this point of equality. As long as Iran, syria, North Korea or the Palestinians are not considered equal, then the US and Israel can continue to treat them as second rate.

Unfortunately, as long as US public opinion remains unsophisticated and naive, then people like Kagan can be brought out to ’soften’ it up before any new and major criminal activity by ‘civilized and democratic’ US administrations…

Chris Voidis
www.yioni.com/counter-spin.html