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The Pretense of Israeli Democracy

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Susan Stark

Posted by Susan Stark

For decades now, the State of Israel has been able to enjoy the status of being “the only democracy in the Middle East”. I’ve personally known this to be a pretense for years, although most people in the US still believe it. But now even that may be coming to an end. I received this disturbing email from an Israeli peace activist named Adam Keller:

“This week Israel’s security forces practiced the putting down of mass demonstrations and protests among Israel’s Arab citizens and their imprisonment in a large detention camp to be established at Golani Junction in Galilee. The exercise was based on a scenario of the riots being provoked by implementation of Avigdor Lieberman’s plan for “an exchange of populations”, i.e. massively depriving Arabs of their Israeli citizenship. A week ago Lieberman voiced this heinous idea on the podium of the UN Assembly General and Prime Minister Netanyahu murmured some weak reservations. Now it turns out that the security forces are already preparing to implement it in practice, under the responsibility of none other than Labor Party leader Ehud Barak – the Minister of Defence. It goes without saying that in a country having any pretence to be a democracy it would be unacceptable and unthinkable for the security forces to practice waging war against the country’s own citizens. Together with the racist “Loyalty Oath Bill”
which gained the support of the government, and with the demonstrative resumption of settlement construction in the Occupied Territories, it increasingly seems that Lieberman is the true Prime Minister, and that the government follows on his path, leading the State of Israel in big and rapid strides into the abyss.”

Susan

The Glenn Beck Farce

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Susan Stark

Liberals are quite understandably disgusted by Glenn Beck’s “MLK Speech” ridiculous farce taking place today near the Lincoln Memorial. But it’s worse than they think. What they don’t realize is that this whole thing is nothing but a designed distraction away from the 5th anniversary of the Katrina disaster. A similar distraction took place four years ago when the media decided to dredge up the JonBenet Ramsey case again, right on the 1st anniversary of Katrina.

Five years later, most of the victims of Katrina have not been adequately compensated for their losses, and have not been allowed to return to rebuild their homes. The only media outlet in the country who is dedicating itself to the Katrina issue is HBO, with its series “Treme” and Spike Lee’s new documentary.

It is beyond cynical for Glenn Beck to use Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy in order to sweep the Katrina disaster under rug. In fact, it’s grotesque. But, unfortunately, this is where we’re at in this country.

Susan Stark

No, we are NOT “all BP”.

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Susan Stark

(This commentary is posted by Susan Stark, a guest here who crashes on Ted’s virtual couch now and then. I haven’t been here in a while, so I thought I’d stop by again.)

Whenever a disaster strikes as a result of corporate malfeasance, there is particular argument that well-meaning people make that annoys me, mainly because it’s not completely true. Take this New York Times letter to the editor:

In “BP’s Responsibility” (editorial, June 12), you say that while a possible total bill of $40 billion for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is breathtaking, the “destruction BP has wrought is even more so.” Like so much commentary on the disaster, this focuses blame wholly on the oil company.

Undoubtedly BP is responsible, but so are all of us who drive cars, travel by plane or consume goods produced and shipped with oil. If we didn’t use it, BP wouldn’t drill for it. Until we recognize that demand for oil is as much the problem as supply, and start to change the way we live to reduce it, environmental destruction is inevitable.

We are all BP.

Martin Brown

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I beg to differ. This type of argument is something that actually works in the favor of corporations like BP, because it essentially lets them off the hook for what they do. It allows them to say, essentially, that “We are just giving the people what they want, don’t blame us for the result”.

But even if it’s true that we are responsible because we consume oil, we are not all equally responsible. Someone who drives an SUV or any other gas-guzzler is more responsible than someone who takes public transportation. A person who jacks up the thermostat in winter is more responsible than someone who wears extra layers of clothing. If you use air-conditioner rather than a fan, then you are more responsible for these types of disasters than if you chose the fan.

But the people who are the most responsible are the members of the corporate “personhood” of BP. They made the decision to cut safety procedures in order maximize profit. They made the decision to forgo obtaining a kill switch which would have prevented the disaster, merely because it would’ve cost them five hundred grand (which is a drop in the bucket for a multinational oil company like BP).

So yes, we are all responsible, but not equally. BP is the most responsible, and needs to pay for what they did.

Susan

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