Keeping up with the latest spins

It gets harder every day for me to put any attention toward recent "news" events. My inbox is continually refilled with alerts and forwards from people on the "right", the "left" and sometimes even the communitarian middle. The right is currently flipping out over the Fusionist Kansas DHS report, but most articles and "conservative alerts" have eliminated the most relevant terms and focus all their outrage on Napolitano's resignation and Obama's spokesman's comments; very little (to nothing) is being written about the Fusion program or the COPS who initated it.

The right v left "divide" continues to serve a valuable purpose for the emerging supranational world government. As long as they keep up their pretense of opposites they can skillfully redirect our attentions and guide us into useless actions. There are hundreds of other divides too; not one controversial topic is set up with a simple formula. Each side has as many sub-sides as the topic can handle, and the Zionist arena has more than anyone can handle. As I am committed to continuing my studies and we are enrolled in no formal anticommunitarian studies program, perspectives in comments from readers adds to my overall thoughts on these topics.

Amitai Etzioni is a duel Israeli-US citizen; he wrote that the Israeli government will not allow him to change his duel citizen status. I've tried to keep up with the duel citizenship controversy for this reason. From Peter Myer's elist:

(7) Harman Wiretap story is Zionist Spin

From: Syd Walker <syd@sydwalker.info> Date: 25.04.2009 11:19 AM

> Harman Wiretap Highlights Suspicions
> Intel Concerns of Dual Loyalty ‘Rooted Deep in the System’
> http://www.forward.com/articles/105045/

I think the Harman Wiretap story is bullshit - and I explain why here:

http://sydwalker.info/blog/2009/04/24/harman-wire-tap-a-convenient-expose/

It was interesting however to read the Forward's take, and I found it went some way to confirming my view. This is a story that enables the Zionist Lobby to spin the 'Israeli spying in the USA' issue - which is out there already in the public domain - the way they want to spin it.

(8) Harman Wire-Tap suggests anti-Jewish persecution; Mondoweiss says Ms Harman is Jewish

Harman Wire-Tap: A Convenient Exposé

By Syd Walker on Friday, April 24th 2009

Californian Congresswoman Jane Harman

There’s been plenty of coverage of the Jane Harman wiretap ‘scandal’, not only on the blogosphere but also in the mainstream media.

That fact alone makes me a little suspicious. Here’s an extract from the (Murdoch-owned) Times of London: Wiretap scandal of leading Democrat ‘who lobbied for Israeli spies’:

A prominent Democratic Congresswoman was embroiled last night in a growing scandal involving government wiretaps and her relationship with two alleged Israeli spies.

Jane Harman, a California Democrat with long involvement in US intelligence matters, was allegedly recorded by a Bush administration wiretap promising an Israeli agent that she would intervene on behalf of two pro-Israel lobbyists charged in the US with spying.

In return for pledging to use her influence to get the charges against the two men reduced, Ms Harman, a pro-Israeli hawk, was allegedly told by the unidentified agent that he would put pressure on senior Democrats to get her appointed to a top Congressional intelligence post.

Allegations that Ms Harman had inappropriately used her influence to aid the two employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful Israeli lobby group, surfaced in 2006. What is new is the claim that she had been caught on a National Security Agency (NSA) wiretap discussing a “quid pro quo” deal on the case.

The alleged wiretap, reported by the political journal Congressional Quarterly, occurred because the NSA had been targeting telephone calls made by the Israeli agent during an investigation of AIPAC. In 2006 it was reported that Ms Harman was the subject of an FBI investigation over her involvement with the hawkish Israeli lobby group…

That’s about as far down an article as most readers get, so I’ll stop there…

Incredible news, unbelievable liars

Remember, this is from a News Ltd source. In the USA, other major media organizations with a strong Zionist bias have also run the story.

I’d say it’s froth and doubt it will lead anyhere, or that there’ll be any serious punishment of notorious Israel-firster Jane Harman. Indeed, I suspect she’ll end up publicly ‘vindicated’.

The real goal of this ‘exposé’ is probably to mislead people into believing there is aggressive monitoring of potential Israeli agents in Congress and elsewhere. It helps create the impression that the US intelligence agencies work hard to protect American interests - and that the US body politic is well defended from Israeli influence.

The NSA: has it really saved America from Zionist penetration?

I don’t buy it. The US Congress is stuffed with pro-Israel stooges. If the NSA was seriously monitoring for pro-Israel wheeling and dealing – and these stories were getting through to the public through via leaks like this – we’d have a dozen similar stories each day.

Beware the self-appointed Masters of Discourse! Even their ‘exposes’ and ‘revelations’ may be acts of deception.

That’s not to say, of course, that everyone in Washington is an Israeli stooge. There certainly are centres of opposition to the blatant betrayal of American interests to a foreign power. President Obama’s own personal position is far from clear.

But to imagine that this case is the most serious recent instance of the betrayal of American interests to Israel is to live in fantasyland, which is precisely where the western mass media likes to keep us.

Incidentally, Jane Harman is not only a rabid Zionist who promotes illegal wars against Israel’s perceived enemies. She’s seriously loopy too.

Jane Harman: lives in fantasyland, frets about virtual terrorism

Harman recently claimed to the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet that “Islamic militants are suspected of using Second Life, the Internet virtual world, to hunt for recruits and mimic real life terrorism”.

Perhaps she’s fears a militant might swoop out of her flatscreen one day and steal her wig?

I for one would be keen to pull it off, as soon as the technology is sufficiently advanced - and if I ever encounter the war-mongering bitch in cyberspace, I’ll set my virtual dog on her. __

POSTSCRIPT: Mondoweiss says Ms Harman is Jewish. I didn’t realize that detail had been left out of most mainstream media reports, but Phil Weiss claims it was,

Some fascinating comments follow his article. Here’s one that caught my eye:

I begin to feel that the only answer is to play things safe and bar Jews from public office.

As a Jew, that wouldn’t trouble me in the least. We’ll lose the wise council of Joe Leiberman, Douglas Feith, Elliot Abrams. Nothing to lose sleep over, in my view.

That will allow smart Jews to continue their meteoric rise in physics and cosmology, literature, etc and keep Jewish riff raff from further perverting our system.

I’m kidding.

But not completely.

It would indeed be annoying to be a first-class astrophysicist, jazz musician or whatever - and feel tarred with the same brush as criminal maniacs.

On the other hand, we shouldn’t forget that most of the Zionist stooges who pack the Parliaments of the western world aren’t Jewish. They’re non-Jews, who go along to get along.

Personally, I’d sooner put my trust in the commentator above than toadies like George Bush, Tony Blair, Angela Merkel, Stephen Harper, John Howard etc etc. ==

Realist says Harman story may fuel American fury about special relationship

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/04/realist-says-harman-story-may-fuel-american-fury-about-special-relationship-.html

April 20, 2009

Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), i.e. to the control of congressional oversight over the intelligence community and its activities. That position is by any measure an extremely sensitive one in our national security apparatus. The attempted placement of someone seen by a foreign country Israel as an agent of influence in that position is -- or should be -- a big story. So is the Obama Administration's apparent unwillingness to allow this or to appoint Ms. Harman to a position in the intelligence community, despite the well-documented effort she and the lobby made to advance her candidacy. ...

The Harman-Pelosi story, reported by Stein, also seems to help explain why the HPSCI and its Senate counterpart -- as well as Pelosi -- were so responsive to the campaign the Likud-Lieberman lobby waged against Chas Freeman for the National Intelligence Council. In that case, the lobby vetoed an appointment to the intelligence community. In Harman's case, albeit ultimately unsuccessfully, it attempted to advance one. ...

Posted by Philip Weiss at 04:26 PM ==

Daniel Schorr dismisses Harman case as 'something of a brouhaha'

April 25, 2009

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/04/daniel-schorr-dismisses-harman-case-as-something-of-a-brouhaha.html

Daniel Schorr is a commentator on NPR's Saturday morning radio show. He has esteem in the liberal community. Per his autobiography, his mother was devoted to the Zionist cause, and that familial bias shows through in his work. This morning, Scott Simon asked him about the Harman case and Schorr began by saying that Harman is a close friend of his, before getting the case wrong in a couple particulars. It didn't happen as Harman was trying to get the chairmanship of House Intelligence; it was fully a year earlier, as she was battling to keep her status as "ranking member" of the committee. It didn't involve an "investigation" of Israeli lobbyists, as Schorr said; the lobbyists had been indicted long before. Schorr concluded that the matter is "something of a brouhaha." Brouhaha, now being replaced by kerfuffle in journalistic lingo, means People getting into a tizzy about something silly.

This takes me back to Jewish identity. Harman is a liberal hawk, virtually a neocon on Middle East matters. She pushed the disastrous Iraq war. Schorr is a liberal, and I'm sure hawkish. What worldview do these two people share? How much does Israel figure in it? What is its religious basis? And how important is antisemitism to them? What political crimes does this worldview overlook? And what should young liberals make of these values?

P.S. Both Scott Simon and Chris Matthews have called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, "the American Israel Political Action Committee." But AIPAC is not a PAC. It is a devoted lobbying group, but it doesn't collect money to give to candidates. It takes stands on issues, and its members can do as they please.

Posted by Philip Weiss at 09:43 AM