bystanders
'One who stands near; a spectator; one who has no concern with the business transacting.'
he don't say nothin'
Submitted by antarchi on June 4, 2010 - 21:30As a presidential candidate, Obama was careful to say nothing about the brutal Israeli blockade against the 1.5 million people in Gaza, about to enter its fourth year. As president-elect he stayed mum as the Israelis attacked densely populated Gaza, killing some 1,400 Gazans.
As President, he has backed down at every significant moment when Netanyahu thumbed his nose at Obama or at Vice President Joe Biden.
Obama knew about the “Freedom Flotilla” and its plan to bring supplies to Gaza. And he had to be aware of Israel’s threats to attack the relief ships. But, like Uncle Remus’s B’rer Fox, Obama “don’t say nothin.’”
Quite the contrary, Obama’s pro-Zionist White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who recently vacationed in Israel and met with Netanyahu last Wednesday, extended an invitation for a working visit at the White House. Netanyahu was to visit Obama on Tuesday after a four-day visit to Canada.
they do not make trouble
Submitted by antarchi on February 21, 2010 - 14:21The most deadly criticism one could make of modern civilisation is that apart from its man-made crises and catastrophes, it is not humanly interesting...
In the end, such a civilisation can produce only a mass man: incapable of choice, incapable of spontaneous, self-directed activities: at best patient, docile, disciplined to monotonous work to an almost pathetic degree, but increasingly irresponsible as his choices become fewer and fewer: finally, a creature governed mainly by his conditioned reflexes - the ideal type desired, if never quite achieved, by the advertising agency and the sales organisations of modern business, or by the propaganda office and the planning bureaus of totalitarian and quasi-totalitarian government. The handsomest encomium for such creatures is: 'They do not make trouble'. Their highest virtue is: 'They do not stick their necks out'. Ulitmately such a society produces only two groups of men: the conditioners and the conditioned; the active and the passive barbarians.
The Conduct of Life
we oppose torture, vehemently
Submitted by antarchi on April 29, 2009 - 00:01Watch Craig Murray giving evidence to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.
In October or November of 2002 I sent the FCO a telegram classified Top Secret and addressed specifically for the attention of the Secretary of State. I argued that to receive ... material from torture was:
• Illegal – Plainly it was a breach of UNCAT [UN Convention against Torture]
• Immoral – To support such despicable practices undermined our claims to civilisation
• Impractical – The material was designed to paint a false picture
I received no reply, so in January or February of 2003 I sent a further telegram repeating the same points...I was summoned back to a meeting which was held in the FCO...At the start of the meeting Linda Duffield told me that Sir Michael Jay, Permanent Under Secretary, wished me to know that my telegrams were unwise and that these sensitive questions were best not discussed on paper.
In the meeting, Sir Michael Wood [Legal Advisor] told me that it was not illegal for us to obtain intelligence from torture, provided someone else did the torture. He added “I make no comment on the moral aspect” and appeared to me to be signalling disapproval.
Craig Murray, from his Evidence Statement to the JCHR
miliband and gaza
Submitted by antarchi on January 13, 2009 - 00:00Dear David Miliband
I am writing to express my utter disgust at the British Government and the Foreign Office's reaction to what has happened in Gaza. You know as well as I do that throughout the second intifada, about 5 times as many Palestinians have been murdered by Israelis than the other way around. You know as well as I do that over the past 4 days, about 100 times as many Palestinians have been murdered by Israelis than the other way around. And you know as well as I that tens, if not hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of Gaza have been injured, traumatised, and lost their livelihoods and families as a result of this vicious bombing campaign.
Yet you cannot bring yourself to say that Israel's actions are disproportionate.
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not condemning gaza
Submitted by antarchi on January 13, 2009 - 00:00letter to my MP. His reply below
Dear David Cameron
I am disappointed but not wholly surprised that you are unable to condemn outright Israel's actions in Gaza. This is an act of vicious collective punishment, coming on top of a lengthy siege that has been condemned by human rights activists and lawyers worldwide.
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moral obligation to intervene
Submitted by antarchi on April 27, 2008 - 12:32Two years later, a Commons Select Committee would conclude: ‘Britain had a legal right to intervene [in the Turkish assault on Cyprus], she had a moral obligation to intervene, she had the military capacity to intervene. She did not intervene for reasons which the government refuses to give.’
