Swans

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Our Kind of Guy: Good ol' Eli Beckerman...solid as a rock!

[ed. The Boston Globe has refused to cover the campaign of Jill Stein but on October 31 the MetroWest Daily News, one of the major dailies in Massachusetts, endorsed her. Here's an excerpt of the endorsement:

Endorsement: Jill Stein for Secretary of State

[...] When lobbyists and lawmakers cut deals behind closed doors, Galvin goes along.

Galvin does have an opponent on the Nov. 7 ballot: Jill Stein of the Green-Rainbow Party. Stein, a Lexington physician, is a soft-spoken and articulate critic of state politics and government policy. She makes a convincing case that an aggressive secretary of state could treat the ills that beset the Beacon Hill establishment, and save us from what she calls "the hidden tax of influence-peddling."

Galvin has had some success in protecting consumers from investment fraud. He's made some improvement in voter registration and election procedures, though he is now missing a federal deadline for making voting machines more accessible to voters with disabilities.

But Galvin is a pillar of the Democratic establishment who shows little interest in rocking the boat. What Massachusetts needs in that office is a champion of good government, a referee willing to blow the whistle on the other players, a watchdog who'll protect voters and taxpayers. For these reasons, we endorse JILL STEIN for secretary of state.

For those of us who keep advocating to vote on the issues and select independant candidates in spite of the 2004 Green debacle this is an encouraging development. Keep in mind our voting recommendations.]

Differences Without Differences

[ed. Of course, there are differences between the two parties. No one denies this. The differences are about the best policies to keep the status quo handy, from globalization to our SUVs and the bipartisan wars around the globe. These differences serve a larger purpose: to keep the American people confused and stuck within the same paradigm. With all due respect, the penultimate paragraph of this letter sums it all up in regard to the confusion of its writer's mind. Perhaps Bob Wrubel has in mind the 20-30 percent of the Democratic Party that are progressive. He forgets, however the 70-80 percent that are either centrists (center right) or scarily reactionary and vote with the Republicans time after time. He should look at the voting patterns of the Democrats, and then reassess his position.]

By Golly, They are Coming, They are Coming! Peter Byrne's Oriana Fallaci, 1929-2006

On September 12 in Germany, he [Pope Benedict XVI] developed his thesis that the Christian God was reasonable (rejecting violence), unlike the Muslim God who was arbitrary (indifferent to violence). After the hostile reaction of Muslims to these speculations, Benedict was quickly excused in Italy as a bookish old man, lacking diplomacy, who had been misunderstood. On the contrary, his words in Germany, apart from being patronizing toward 1.3 billion Muslims, simply marked another step in the effort of the Church to keep Europe for its private domain. In fact, as John Hopper points out (London Observer, September 17, 2006) Benedict began dwelling on the links between Islam and violence well before he became Pope.

A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland: the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.

Peter Byrne responds:

Dear Mr. Litvak,

It must be like playing a video game to sit in San Francisco among your history books (rather too heavy on the 8th to the 18th centuries) and fantasize about a Muslim takeover of Europe. This continent has many immigrants of that faith because our economies can't function without them. Native Europeans don't reproduce sufficiently, despite fetus worship by bachelors in the Vatican. The generally serious and hardworking Muslim immigrants and their children born here are put in real danger by any Western suggestion of a religious war. Racism still smolders in Europe, and Fascist-type abuse of the "other" is a daily occurrence from the North of England, through Germany, to the tip of Italy. That's why the shift in Vatican policy toward Islam from accommodation (Woitija) to confrontation (Ratzinger) is to be decried.

I well understand that Christians from the cultural frontiers, such as the Balkans, have forged their identity on an anti-Islam stance and would feel personally diminished without it. But the time has come for 21st century history books and realities. Let's forget the spilt blood of the 15th century and think about that shed now and that which will flow tomorrow in any concocted "war of civilizations."

During my years in Bulgaria I used to marvel at the amount of time students were encouraged to spend writing essays about the Turkish occupation of yore. The same students knew nothing of modern Turkey and were discouraged from crossing the border to find out. Later, living in Turkey, I found the Ottoman Empire pretty well forgotten, students knowledgeable about the West, and grievances against Europe, religious or other, strictly the province of the usual cranks.

Yours,

Peter Byrne
Lecce, Italy - November 2, 2006

Interview with Col. Andrew Bacevich (Ret.)

More of the Same, Old Same... Jewish Prominence, all 15 million of 'em!

Background to Balfour

In a memorandum marked in his own handwriting "Private & Confidential" to Lord Peel and other members of the Royal Commission on Palestine in 1936, James Malcolm wrote: I have always been convinced that until the Jewish question was more or less satisfactorily settled there could be no real or permanent peace in the world, and that the solution lay in Palestine. This was one of the two main considerations which impelled me, in the autumn of 1916, to initiate the negotiations which led eventually to the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate for Palestine. The other, of course, was to bring America into the War. For generations Jews and Gentiles alike have assumed in error that the cause of Anti-Semitism was in the main religious. Indeed, the Jews in the hope of obtaining relief from intolerance, engaged in the intensive and subversive propagation of materialistic doctrines productive of "Liberalism," Socialism, and Irreligion, resulting in de-Christianisation. On the other hand, the more materialistic the Gentiles became, the more aware they were subconsciously made of the cause of Anti-Semitism, which at bottom was, and remains to this day, primarily an economic one. A French writer -- Vicomte de Poncins -- has remarked that in some respects Anti-Semitism is largely a form of self-defence against Jewish economic aggression. In my opinion, however. neither the Jews nor the Gentiles bear the sole responsibility for this.

As I have already said, I had a part in initiating the negotiations in the early autumn of 1916 between the British and French Governments and the Zionist leaders, which led to the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate for Palestine. The first object, of course, was to enlist the very considerable and necessary influence of the Jews, and especially of the Zionist or Nationalist Jews, to help us bring America into the War at the most critical period of the hostilities. This was publicly acknowledged by Mr. Lloyd George during a recent debate in the House of Commons.

Our second object was to enable and induce Jews all the world over to envisage constructive work as their proper field, and to take their minds off destructive and subversive schemes which, owing to their general Sense of insecurity and homelessness, even in the periods preceding the French Revolution, had provoked so much trouble and unrest in various countries, until their ever-increasing violence culminated in the Third International and the Russian Communist Revolution. But to achieve this end it was necessary to promise them Palestine in consideration of their help, as already explained, and not as a mere humanitarian experiment or enterprise, as represented in certain quarters.

It is no wonder that Weizmann did not refer to Malcolm in his autobiography, and Sokolow privately resented Malcolm "as a stranger in the center of our work," who was "endowed with an esprit of a goyish kind." [187]

It is also worth noting that on page seven of his memorandum Malcolm quoted General Ludendorff, former Quartermaster General of the German Army, and perhaps at least remembered for heading an unsuccessful coup in Munich in 1923, as saying that the Balfour Declaration was "the cleverest thing done by the Allies in the way of propaganda and that he wished Germany had thought of it first."

On the other hand, might it not have provided some cold comfort for Ludendorff to believe that the Zionist Jews were a major factor in the outcome of the war -- if that is what he is implying? Malcolm's belief in the Balfour Declaration as a means of bringing the United States into the war was confirmed by Samuel Landman, secretary to the Zionist leaders Weizmann and Sokolow, and later secretary of the World Zionist Organization. As the only way (which proved so to be) to induce the American President to come into the war was to secure the cooperation of Zionist Jews by promising them Palestine, and thus enlist and mobilize the hitherto unsuspectedly powerful forces of Zionist Jews in America and elsewhere in favour of the Allies on a quid pro quo contract basis. Thus, as will be seen, the Zionists having carried out their part, and greatly helped to bring America in, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 was but the public confirmation of the necessarily secret "gentlemens' " agreement of 1916, made with the previous knowledge, acquiescence, and or approval of the Arabs, and of the British, and of the French and other Allied governments, and not merely a voluntary, altruistic and romantic gesture on the part of Great Britain as certain people either through pardonable ignorance assume or unpardonable ill-will would represent or rather misrepresent ... [188]

Speaking in the House of Commons on 4 July 1922, Winston Churchill asked rhetorically, Are we to keep our pledge to the Zionists made in 1917...? Pledges and promises were made during the war, and they were made, not only on the merits, though I think the merits are considerable. They were made because it was considered they would be of value to us in our struggle to win the war. It was considered that the support which the Jews could give us all over the world, and particularly in the United States, and also in Russia, would be a definite palpable advantage. I was not responsible at that time for the giving of those pledges, nor for the conduct of the war of which they were, when given, an integral part. But like other members I supported the policy of the War Cabinet. Like other members, I accepted and was proud to accept a share in those great transactions, which left us with terrible losses, with formidable obligations, but nevertheless with unchallengable victory. However, Hansard notes, one member, Mr. Gwynne, plaintively complained that "the House has not yet had an opportunity of discussing it."

Writing to The Times on 2 November 1949, Malcolm Thomson, the official biographer of Lloyd George, noted that this was the thirty-second anniversary of the Balfour Declaration and it seemed a suitable occasion for stating briefly certain facts about its origin which have recently been incorrectly recorded. When writing the official biography of Lloyd George, I was able to study the original documents bearing on this question. From these it was clear that although certain members of the Cabinets of 1916 and 1917 sympathized with Zionist aspirations, the efforts of Zionist leaders to win any promise of support from the British Government had proved quite ineffectual, and the secret Sykes-Picot agreement with the French for partition of spheres of interest in the Middle East seemed to doom Zionist aims. A change of attitude was, however, brought about through the initiative of Mr. James A. Malcolm, who pressed on Sir Mark Sykes, then Under-Secretary to the War Cabinet, the thesis that an allied offer to restore Palestine to the Jews would swing over from the German to the allied side the very powerful influence of American Jews, including Judge Brandeis, the friend and adviser of President Wilson. Sykes was interested, and at his request Malcolm introduced him to Dr. Weizmann and the other Zionist leaders, and negotiations were opened which culminated in the Balfour Declaration. These facts have at one time or another been mentioned in various books and articles, and are set out by Dr. Adolf Boehm in his monumental history of Zionism, Die Zionistische Bewegung, Vol. 1, p. 656. It therefore surprised me to find in Dr. Weizmann's autobiography, Trial and Error, that he makes no mention of Mr. Malcolm's crucially important intervention, and even attributes his own introduction to Sir Mark Sykes to the late Dr. Caster. As future historians might not unnaturally suppose Dr. Weizmann's account to be authentic, I have communicated with Mr. Malcolm, who not only confirms the account I have given, but holds a letter written to him by Dr. Weizmann on March 5, 1941, saying: "You will be interested to hear that some time ago I had occasion to write to Mr. Lloyd George about your useful and timely initiative in 1916 to bring about the negotiations between myself and my Zionist colleagues and Sir Mark Sykes and others about Palestine and Zionist support of the allied cause in America and elsewhere."

No doubt a complexity of motives lay behind the Balfour Declaration, including strategic and diplomatic considerations and, on the part of Balfour, Lloyd George, and Smuts, a genuine sympathy with Zionist aims. But the determining factor was the intervention of Mr. Malcolm with his scheme for engaging by some such concession the support of American Zionists for the allied cause in the first world war. Yours, & c., MALCOLM THOMSON (Source: Behind the Balfour Declaration by Robert John.)

[ed. Here we go again, a "group" of 15,000,000 people down to a few banking families are controlling the world.... One short excerpt from one book becomes an evidence of wrong-doing and world manipulation by the said "group...." What else to say? Ashley Howes may wish to read The Politics Of Anti-Semitism, Part II: Stereotypes And Other Canards - Gilles d'Aymery - May 2004.]

Debunking a Few Canards as well as Interjecting the Usual PR

[ed. Some valid points amidst the usual PR. Now, if only Dr. Amir could take care of the cancer in his own society -- namely, Avigdor Lieberman, the successor to Meir Kahane and Rehavam Ze'evi, and his growing racist followers. Avigdor Lieberman, deputy prime minister in charge of security issues! If only he could spend his time writing to his government to push for a negotiated solution to the conflict, to even accept the offer made by Ahmed Yousef, a senior adviser to the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya, in a New York Times Op-Ed, "Pause for Peace" (November 1, 2006): "Hamas proposes a long-term truce during which the Israeli and Palestinian peoples can try to negotiate a lasting peace." And if a 10-year Hudna is not long enough, ask for 20 or 25 years, a full generation. This would be time better spent than writing lengthy letters to the editor to debunk what needs just a few lines.]

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