6 March
Netanyahu tells Obama Israel may attack Iran alone if necessary
Highlighting their different views of the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program, President Barack Obama insisted Monday that diplomacy still has time to halt the effort, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reasserted Israel’s right to take unilateral military action, saying the Jewish state must remain “the master of its fate.”
Aggressive warfare is never necessary. If Obama were interested in making the US the “the master of its fate” he would have said, “Well, Bibi, you’ll be on your own if you start a war with Iran.”
But of course Obama stooge did not say that. Will he? I fear not. I think he will remain on Bibi’s knee just as Charlie McCarthy remained on Edgar Bergen’s knee or Knucklehead Smith on Paul Winchell’s. I fear that Israel will attack Iran and that Obama will follow, asserting that we “have to” do so. I fear that the tail continues to wag the dog, that the interests of AIPAC will prevail over the interests of our 99% worldwide.
The President of the United States with the President of the American Israeli Political Action Committee
Obama to AIPAC: I have Israel’s back
A nuclear-armed Iran is completely counter to Israel’s security interests. But it is also counter to the national security interests of the United States. Indeed, the entire world has an interest in preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. A nuclear-armed Iran would thoroughly undermine the non-proliferation regime that we have done so much to build.
Let’s begin with a basic truth that we all understand: ‘the non-proliferation regime’ we have done so much to build includes the 75 – 200 nuclear warheads built by Israel, which refused to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, as well as the zero nuclear warheads possessed by Iran, a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Obama’s ‘basic truth’ is a lie. Unsurprising from the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate waging a half-dozen Wars of Aggression around the world and, together with Israel, engaged in the ‘planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances’ against Iran.
Principle I. Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.
Principle II. The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.
Principle III. The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV. The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
Principle V. Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.
Principle VI. The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War Crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave-labour or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.
Principle VII. Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.
Obama is a liar, a murderer, a war criminal; the betrayer of all of us Americans.
The fact that all the Republicrat candidates for POTUS are so as well leaves us with only the obvious option : to repudiate the duopoly and to assert our own sovereignty over our own nation and so to master our own fate.
No war in Iran. End the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria, and any others begun by the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Bring all the troops home and bring down the curtain on our imperial occupations abroad beginning at the very least with Okinawa in Japan and Jeju Island in South Korea.
How? Clearly we must vote out the duopoly candidates in this year’s election.
A vote for a duopol is a wasted vote.
There will be no non-duopols on our ballots – the duopoly’s control of political life in the USA begins with control of our ballots – so…
- We must write-in the names of candidates whom we can reasonably expect to represent our interests chosen from among ourselves, paying no attention to absurd assertions that this is ‘illegal’.
- We must work hard to ensure that our candidates receive more of our votes in each election than do candidates of the duopoly.
- We must contest the outcome of every election we win – that is in which no candidate received a majority of the votes cast – insist on a tally of all those receiving any votes at all in the elections, insist on run-off elections to determine the actual winners, and choose winners from among those candidates we’ve written in.
Once the illegitimacy of the duopol ‘government’ and the utter bankruptcy of our ‘democracy’ have been demonstrated to all, especially to ourselves, we can purposefully begin the long march to restructure our government to serve our interests.
This is what needs to be done and there is no one here to do it but ourselves. We might have begun in 2004, we should have begun in 2008, we must begin in 2012.
7 March
The only possible way for Rocky to win the presidency is if we all come to his support
In spite of all the accolades, Rocky has a mountainous task ahead of him if he is to prevail as the 45th president of the United States, … there will be a great sigh of relief if he pulls off the most remarkable political coup in the history of U.S. politics, and if anybody can do it, he has the credentials and the stamina as a proven winner.
The only possible way for Rocky to win the presidency is if all of America’s progressives come to his support. His web site is: www.voterocky.org
- An immediate end to the on-going wars.
- Essential healh care coverage for all citizens
- An end to the legal concept of corporate personhood
- Adequate revenues to balance the budget through fair taxation
- Control of the Federal Reserve by the Treasury Department and Congress
- A balanced budget (or surplus) except in times of war or major recession
- An end to the stranglehold on our government by the military-industrial complex
- Treatment of substance abuse as a public health, rather than criminal justice, issue
- Urgent international leadership by the US to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of climate disruption
- A constitutional amendment ot overrule Citizens United and to allow limits or prohibitions of the corrosive impact of money on our electoral system
JFL, I know very little about US politics at grass root level.I like the ideas of Noam Chomsky and he is backing Jill Stein a Green candidate.Being that their political solutions seem very similar (Stein & Anderson)would they not be better off working together.Can you inform us who are unfamiliar with what the situation is regarding decent honest candidates.
Hi Darren,
Do you get emails announcing new posts?
If it looks like Jill Stein can win I’ll surely vote for her. But the problem in the US is, well, two-fold. Behind everything else there’s the ‘electoral college’, which is a winner-take-all statewise vote by ‘electors’, unbound by the popular vote in each state, who appoint the President and Vice-president among themselves. Perhaps you’ll remember that Al Gore beat George W. Bush in the popular vote in 2000, but Bush became President, with some unusual help from the Supreme Court.
But the problem is also that the popular vote is winner-take-all for House and Senate elections as well. So if you have, say three, candidates for an office and they come in at 34%, 33%, 33%… the election is over and the candidate with 34% of the vote is the winner. According to Duverger’s law this leads to two political parties dominating the electoral system, a duopoly such as we have in America.
When you vote in the US you receive a ballot with the names of the Democrat and Republican candidates and perhaps a few others printed on it. Often the first time you have ever heard of the few others is when you read their names on the ballot. If you bother to do so. Sometimes there is a line to write-in the name of candidate not already printed on the ballot. Perhaps this will be the year that a third party candidate catches on. I certainly hope it is.
According to someone named Steven Higgs at counterpunch.org, a newsy site run by now American, erstwhile Irishman Alexander Cockburn,
I like Rocky Anderson, but this seems a very stupid thing to have done… it’s quite difficult to get your name on a ballot in America, Stein is hoping to be on the ballot in 45 of the 50 states, so turning down that opportunity seems very stupid indeed. I wrote to the Anderson Campaign asking if that report was true and if so… what were they thinking? No answer.
In fact I think it makes little difference. I don’t think a single ‘third’ party candidate can get more votes than either of the duopols, and if one did I believe that they’d be defeated by the electoral college. ‘Fair and square’.
I have come to the conclusion that the way we vote… on everything, but let’s leave it at the representative government here… must be restructured. We need at least to be able to write in the name of anyone eligible to hold a given office on a ballot in an election for that office and have that vote counted. That is not the case now.
Another necessary requirement is that a successful candidate must have received at least a majority of votes cast to win an election… if there is no such candidate we vote again… until there is one. This will remove the necessary preconditions for Duverger’s law to continue to hold, thus will break the hold of the duopoly, will break their lock on politics in America.
To make that happen we need to amend our constitution. So what we have here is the requirement for concerted action on the part of all Americans to change the system… and no organization to concert the action of all Americans, other than the informal organization of conversation over the fence, at work, and over the internet.
So I propose that all Americans accept the two conditions above : the right to vote for anyone eligible to hold an office and the right to have one’s vote counted, and the requirement that a candidate receive a majority of votes cast to win an election – and then vote that way[1].
So it is immaterial whether I vote for Jill or Rocky or myself as long as I do not vote for a duopol. If enough Americans follow this strategy it is possible the ‘non-duopol’ column will receive more votes than either of the duopol columns. At this point the fraudulent nature of our election system will be apparent to all, the ‘duopol’ winner will be ‘delegitimated’, as Israel fears it has been, and then real change can ensue. Then real organization can take place to force an amendment that will put in place the two conditions cited above and allow the people to vote ‘outside the box’ the duopoly has them in at present[2].
If, somehow, a single ‘third’ party candidate is elected… hurray! But I don’t think that’s happened since the whigs changed their name… a long, long time ago (in fact it didn’t happen then… the Whigs imploded in 1856 but the other of the dipoles prevailed, Democrat James Buchanon).
Even more important are House and Senate elections, and the same solution will remedy them as well.
The next step, I’ll actually take them in any order, are a campaign finance amendment and a recall, referendum and initiative amendment. Actually the last ought perhaps to logically come first, as it is the most empowering, but it is also the most radical and so might not.
I’m sure you’re sorry you asked by now. Everyone wants to hear about ‘the candidate’ who will put things right… but his name was Barack Obama… i.e. ‘been there, done that’. The problem, in my view, is that root and branch restructuring is what is required.
The sooner we start the sooner we’ll finish. We’d be well on our way if we’d begun in 2004.
[1],[2]
P.S. I haven’t been back to the US since 2002 so I don’t know what people are ‘feeling’ there. From the ‘news’ its ridiculous circus. I do imagine that a lot of people who thought of themslves as solidly ‘middle-class’ are starting to be hurt personally and so are beginning to take a real interest in politics, and that the Occupy movement is symptomatic of that. I don’t know how hurt people have to be before they do struggle to actually gain control. It did happen around the turn of the last century, apparently.
I’m hoping it will happen here in Thailand now. It seems a different dynamic in Thailand… no illusion of a classless society… so a ‘higher’ political consciousness, of inequality. But what do I know? Nothing, really.