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- Democracy Now with Amy Goodman | TV Channel

- America's #1 Populist Jim Hightower On Air

- Mark Fiore Animated Political Cartoons ^

- Documentary - Bilderberg and the Obama Deception
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Jewish TV Network - Currently - The Assault on the Gaza Flotilla ^

Top Stories

"Those Damn Immigrants Again" - The Ethnic Mix That Launched America ^
Consortium News - By William Loren Katz - May 28, 2010

A note from the Editor of Consortium News on this item: In Arizona, a harsh new law has been passed mandating that police demand to see the papers of anyone they have reason to suspect might be an “illegal alien.”

The law has been touted by anti-immigrant groups who are making political hay amid economic troubles across the nation, but historian William Loren Katz says this bigotry goes against some of the founding lessons of the American Republic.

William Loren Katz is the author of forty U.S. books, including the 8-volume school text, A History of Multicultural America. He has been affiliated with New York University since 1973.

Complete text here from William Loren Katz' website
For generations, bashing immigrants has been a favorite political tactic of American xenophobes and white racists when they need to augment their time-honored way of rallying their backers – by picking on blacks and other people of color.

There were fears whipped up over waves of immigration in the 1840s, mostly against Irish Catholics; in the l880s, largely against Chinese; and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, primarily against eastern and southern European Catholics and Jews.

In the 1920s, anti-immigrant fever led Congress to pass two draconian laws closing the gates to "undesirables." In other words, today’s bigotry and fear-mongering about “illegal” Hispanic immigration has a long and ugly history in the United States.

“Super-patriots” and anti-immigrant bigots sometimes trace their distrust of non-natives back to General George Washington and his supposed order as he crossed the Delaware River on Christmas Eve 1776 to “Put none but Americans on guard tonight.”

However, the quotation people at Bartleby.com say there’s no foundation for these purported words from Washington in that context.

“The only basis for this order seems to be found in Washington’s circular letter to regimental commanders, dated April 30, 1777, regarding recruits for his body guard,” the Bartleby experts said, noting that Washington at that time wrote, “You will therefore send me none but natives.”

His reasoning, however, was not that he disdained immigrants but that a few months earlier, a supposed British deserter, Thomas Hickey, had tried to poison Washington and subsequently had been convicted and hanged.

The alleged Delaware crossing quote also makes little sense because Washington’s ragtag Continental Army was filled with non-native-born soldiers, both recent immigrants and Europeans who had joined the cause and were deeply trusted by Washington.

In fact, the British were defeated by a multicultural “rabble,” a self-described “motley crew” that lacked proper uniforms and training and had no respect for the traditional social order that King George III was trying to re-impose on the rebellious colonies.

Who were these rebels? In Carlisle, Pennsylvania, seven of the first nine companies to sign up for the patriot cause were almost entirely Irish and two were largely German. In Charleston, South Carolina, 26 Jews living on King Street joined up to form “The Jews’ Company.”

Irish immigrants not only provided thousands of foot soldiers but also 1,500 officers, including 26 generals. General John Sullivan of Ireland stood with Washington at Valley Forge.

The Valley Forge encampment had so many Irish soldiers that they won the right to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day – after their General warned them to avoid “Rioting and Disorder.”

During that terrible winter, Washington’s soldiers survived because local German immigrant farmers provided food for the ragged troops, and German and Moravian women volunteered to serve as nurses.

And Washington’s freezing soldiers were whipped into an army by General Freidrich von Steuben, a German whose barking orders had to be translated from German to French to English.

Another of Washington’s trusted officers was Christian Febiger, a Danish immigrant. Another was General Johann Kalb, a giant of a man from Germany who served under General Horatio Gates.

Major Cosmo Medici of Italy survived 41 months of battles and 11 months as a prisoner of war. Poland’s Thaddeus Kosciusko became a General, a personal friend of Washington’s, and a war hero. After the war he returned home to lead his own people against Russian tyranny.

Count Casimir Polaski, a Polish nobleman, saved the patriot forces at Brandywine and formed a “Polish Legion” staffed by officers from France, Germany and Poland. Known as “the father of the American cavalry,” Polaski died of wounds suffered in the Battle of Savannah.

Polaski’s chief officer was Colonel Michael Kovats, a Hungarian whose soldiers came mostly from Germany and Hungary. During the siege of Savannah, 700 black soldiers from Haiti helped stem the British assault.

Indeed, a host of “foreigners” bore arms in defense of the new republic -- soldiers and sailors from Spain, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico and, of course, France, which supplied officers such as the Marquis de Lafayette and important naval power.

Louisiana’s Spanish Governor Bernard de Galvez sent food, guns and medicine across his border to the patriots.

Even unwanted “aliens” helped. Of the 29,875 Hessian mercenaries hired by the British, many changed their mind rather than assist the English monarchy crush a revolt on behalf of freedom.

A third of the Hessians failed to show up in Germany, and others surrendered the first chance they had. When Hessian prisoners were taken on a tour of Pennsylvania’s fertile fields many volunteered to stay as farmers. One was Private Kuster, an ancestor of General George Custer.

The British learned to their sorrow that immigrants from many lands were willing to fight and die – along with native-born soldiers from the many ethnic and racial groups already in the colonies – so the fledgling United States of America might live.

Despite the existence of slavery, there were many volunteers of African descent, people like Oliver Cromwell who was in the boat with Washington as he crossed the Delaware. Cromwell also fought bravely at Princeton, Brandywine, Monmouth and Yorktown.

Even earlier in the war, African-Americans helped Ethan Allen capture Fort Ticonderoga, providing the cannons that Washington used to drive the British from Boston.

At Bunker Hill, Peter Salem, a black sharpshooter brought down Major Pitcairn, the British commander, and another, Salem Poor, was cited for battlefield bravery.

Later in the war, African-Americans served heroically alongside whites and Native Americans in Francis Marion’s guerrilla forces in the Carolinas.

“No regiment is to be seen in which there are not negroes in abundance,” reported one captured Hessian soldier.

This unlikely unity of people from so many ethnic, racial and social groupings was a message not lost on the aristocratic Lord Cornwallis when he was forced to surrender to this rabble army at Yorktown in 1781. He ordered his band to play “The World Turned Upside Down.”

It is, however, a lesson that many Americans seem to have forgotten amid today's anti-immigrant fervor.

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International News

- Real clear Politics Daily Rundown ^

Commentary | Israel's Dangerous Turn ^
Consortium News - By Robert Parry - June 2, 2010

After Israel’s lethal attack in international waters on a civilian flotilla carrying relief supplies to Gaza, a troubling question arises: Have Israeli authorities, who possess a major nuclear arsenal, become dangerously erratic?
This question can't be posed publicly in the American mainstream news media nor in U.S. political circles, where fear of the pro-Israel lobby remains strong. But it is a concern that is being discussed quietly by foreign policy analysts around the world.

Even as America’s commentariat again generates the predictable excuses for Israeli latest actions, the political reality inside Israel is one that is shifting more and more toward a society dominated by Jewish fundamentalists, including an aggressive and racist settler bloc.

The ultra-Orthodox Shas Party is now in the Likud ruling coalition and holds important Cabinet posts such as housing. Shas leaders have made it clear that they favor a country segregated not just between Arab and Jew but between secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Editorial | Outlaws of the Mediterranean ^
Middle East Report Online - June 1, 2010

Reaction to the {Israeli } raid, from Turkey to the European Union to the UN, has been swift and (almost) universally condemnatory. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called it an act of “state terrorism.” Turkey currently sits on the UN Security Council, which convened an emergency meeting. That meeting went into closed session as night fell on May 31. Meanwhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri dubbed the raid a “crazy move.” EU countries have summoned Israeli ambassadors to demand an explanation. “No one in the world will believe the lies and excuses which the government and army spokesmen come up with,” said Uri Avnery, a former member of the Israeli Knesset and leader of the Gush Shalom peace group in Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu canceled a visit to Washington scheduled for June 1 -- perhaps in tacit agreement with Avnery, though it seems at least possible that President Barack Obama did not wish to be seen “standing with Israel” on this occasion. Publicly, in any case, the White House remains the odd man out, saying only that it “regrets the loss of life” and is “working to understand the circumstances of the tragedy.”

Much is unknown for certain about the commando operation, but it is nonetheless a moment of clarity in the ongoing drama surrounding Israel’s 43-year occupation of Palestinian lands and its ten-year siege of Gaza, which has been tightened to a stranglehold since the Islamist party Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections. Once again, Israel has made the asymmetry of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict crystal clear. With this raid upon a peaceful ship on the high seas, Israel has made clear its disdain for international law -- and its contempt for the notion that it will be held accountable for its violations. Israel will persist in this behavior until someone, and that someone is the United States, ends its impunity.

Israeli Navy Seizes 'Rachel Corrie' ^
Consortium News - By Dennis Bernstein and Jesse Strauss - June 5, 2010

CN Editor’s Note: Shortly after dawn on Saturday, the Israeli Navy seized the Rachel Corrie in international waters about 35 miles off the coast of Gaza. Unlike the bloody assault on Monday, Israeli forces boarded the Rachel Corrie from sea, not from helicopters, Israeli officials said.

An Israeli spokesperson said there was no resistance from the crew or passengers. The following article was reported and filed before the assault took place:

Much to the dismay of the Israeli government, Rachel Corrie remains determined to protect the rights of Palestinians crowded into the Gaza Strip.

Of course, we're not talking about the young woman who was crushed under an Israeli bulldozer driven by the IDF in 2003, but rather a boat named in her honor, bringing humanitarian supplies to Gaza.
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United States Government

Commentary | Even Kissinger Finally 'Gets It' ^
Consortium News - By Winslow Myers - May 29, 2010

Questions of war and peace are demanding answers, especially the dangers posed by the macho posturing of U.S. politicians and officials.

In this guest essay, peace advocate Winslow Myer says it’s past time for the world to move from an attitude of “with us or against us” to “we’re all in this together”:

One of the most fascinating phenomena in the lives of public servants is the difference between what they permit themselves to say while in harness and what they can safely say after they retire.

As the 87-year-old Henry Kissinger remarked in the documentary film “Nuclear Tipping Point,” “For me the most searing question was what I would actually tell the president if he turned to me and said, ‘I’ve done everything I can in the diplomatic field, and my only option now is to use nuclear weapons.’ Of all of the decisions that were before me, this was the most haunting one.”

He goes on to say: “I tried to apply traditional diplomatic principles to a world with nuclear weapons. And I found it, I would say, impossible to do.”

Whatever we may think about Dr. Kissinger’s lifetime of diplomatic subterfuge, these statements have the authoritative ring of hard-won wisdom.

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Activism at the Ground Level

The only recognizable feature of hope is action.
-- Grace Paley

"The strength of a democracy is, as in nature, in the roots, not in the flamboyant leaves and flowers that wither and die after a couple of terms in public office."
-- Editor, homosapiens.ki

Tribute - Of Howard Zinn and Other Heroes ^
williamlkatz.com - By William Loren Katz - February 9, 2010

In less than a year the battle for truth has lost three of its most innovative and stalwart voices, historians John Hope Franklin, Ivan Van Sertima and now Howard Zinn. Each challenged aspects of the cheerfully bigoted narrative that has passed for history in schools, colleges, texts and the media. Each created works that made history by awakening millions of fellow citizens to a new host of heroic men and women whose daring contributions had been shamefully ignored.

As they gathered their documentation, Franklin, Van Sertima and Zinn confronted a lily-white, scholarly elite comfortable with racism, economic injustice, and imperialism—with some willing to declare these evils necessary forms of progress. Indeed, the books of these innovative scholars amounted to a vast underground railroad of subversive knowledge. Ivan Van Sertima wrote during a time when Arnold Toynbee led the world's leading scholars in claiming Africans made no contribution to civilization, science or art, none, zero, zip. Van Sertima cited sources beginning with Columbus to prove an African presence in America before 1492—exploding a pivotal self-serving Caucasian myth. Then he went on to detail African contributions to global science, Europe and Asia. The media tried to bury him, but his They Came Before Columbus, became a best-seller, still in print after three decades.

John Hope Franklin wrote in an era when Henry Steele Commager and Samuel Eliot Morison, Pulitzer Prize historians, used their widely used college text, The Growth of the American Republic, to describe slavery in this hideous way. "As for Sambo. . .he suffered less than any other class in the South from its 'peculiar institution.'" Franklin faced a citizenry schooled on notions that people of African descent really benefited from slavery and had no history worth recounting. His response was to painstakingly detail how African Americans contributed mightily to each stage of America's economic and democratic growth. His From Slavery to Freedom has been the leading text in the field since it came out more than six decades ago, and he has been showered with honors.

Howard Zinn broadened the battle when he claimed conventional U.S. texts and school courses failed by celebrating wars, legislation, Presidents, generals and captains of industry. He stood history back on its feet in his People's History of the United States in 1980 which told how masses of American women and men, people of color and poor whites built the country first as slaves and indentured servants, and then as mill hands, assembly line workers and maids. He further antagonized traditional scholars by rejoicing in the disobedience of slave rebels, union organizers and radical civil rights and anti-war agitators. He found dissidents to be America's real patriots and democrats—not the George Washingtons, Thomas Jeffersons and Andrew Jacksons who talked of liberty while they fought Indians, traded in slaves, and sent posses after those who escaped. His text has sold two million copies. . . so far.

Proceeding from different angles, Franklin, Van Sertima and Zinn established that much written history is a false tale, a patriotic pabulum, designed to white wash past crimes, burnish traditional heroes and promote conformity. Each of the three scholar joined demonstrations for causes dear to their historical understanding.

The documents unearthed by Franklin, Van Sertima and Zinn illuminated the world, moved mountains and lifted people who had been told their ancestors never amounted to much. Though these truth-tellers will be sorely missed, their deep love of humanity and extraordinary works will live as long as people seek to examine the past as a way to chart the future.

I found the three men to be delightful, supportive friends; their personal interest stimulated my thinking and benefited my work. I was blessed to ride on their shoulders, and lucky enough to tell each of my love for them, their good humor and crusading works.

Activist Historian Howard Zinn's Obit Causes a Firestorm ^
NPR Ombudsman - February 5, 2010

Zinn was decidedly left of the American political spectrum and the first to say he was biased. His best-known book, "A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present," was a surprise best-seller. It told history from the point of view of those who had been vanquished or oppressed by the powerful.

Zinn, 87, died of a heart attack last Wednesday while on a speaking tour in California.

"He didn't expect people to blindly accept his version of history. Rather, he taught us to question, probe, seek out alternative perspectives and to always be fair." - Laura Paskus, from Paonia, CO.

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Economy and Finance

- Bloomberg Economic News ^

loomberg Current Worldwide Financial News

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Religion and Philsophy

- How 'Power' Christians Ignore Jesus ^
Consortium News - By the Rev. Howard Bess - June 4, 2010

CN Editor’s Note: Many American Christians are inclined to boast about the United States and its uni-polar power – a kind of geopolitical chant of “we’re number one” – even as they put bumper stickers on their cars asking “what would Jesus do?”

The contradiction between this muscular power projection of many Christians and the humble teachings of Jesus are so striking that retired Baptist minister Howard Bess wonders whether many of these believers understand what Jesus actually preached:

Are Christians destined to be rulers? Over the past 2,000 years, the vast majority of the followers of Jesus have answered that question with a resounding “yes.” With that answer, we have deserted the very leader we claim to follow.

Among the aphorisms of Jesus is a simple message that his initial followers found troubling: “If any among you would be great, let him be a servant of all.” This saying is found in both the Matthew gospel and the Mark gospel.

The two gospels set the story a bit differently. However, in both versions, a dispute has arisen among Jesus’s disciples, vying for first place after Jesus was expected to become a powerful ruler. They were looking forward to the day when they would be top dogs in a powerful ruling kingdom.

But Jesus had a different vision. The people of God were to be a servant people. Jesus pointed out to his disciples that other people aspired to greatness by exercising authority, adding: “It shall not be so among you!”

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Science and Technology

- Bloomberg Index of Current Science New ^

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Social Isssues

- Bloomberg Index of Current Science New ^

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Violence - Civil and Governmental

Editorial | Weapons of the Strong ^
Middle East Report - MER 255 — Summer 2010

On the domestic front, no one could describe the initial two years of the Obama administration as placid. Abroad, Obama has persisted in the wars bequeathed to him by Bush, in some ways escalating them. He has fattened the purse of the Pentagon. He has drawn down troop levels in Iraq only to “surge” in Afghanistan. And since the October 2009 publication of the New America Foundation’s Revenge of the Drones, the press corps has cottoned to the fact that Obama has authorized a sharp increase in the number of Predator-borne missile attacks upon alleged terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan (with a few more in Yemen, where the United States is trying to kill an American citizen, the radical Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi). The New America Foundation concludes that civilian casualties caused by drones have spiked as well.

The Predators’ projectiles are aimed at what the Bush administration called “enemy combatants” and, like that category of person, the strikes remain legally dubious. In 2008, the UN tasked law professor Philip Alston with investigating the drone attacks as “extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions,” and he has lambasted the Predator program as having “absolutely no accountability in terms of the relevant international laws.” As Newsweek has reported, the main difference between Bush and Obama on this score is that Obama defends drone strikes in legal terms, dispatching State Department legal adviser Harold Koh to argue that “lethal operations conducted with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles comply with all applicable law, including the laws of war.” Where Bush was willing—indeed proud—to wage war in defiance of international norms, Obama wants to use the same dirty tactics, but with a veneer of propriety to shine in the eyes of Europeans and American liberals.

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