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WHO RULES: THE ISRAEL LOBBY
OR UNCLE SAM?
The answer
at last! Uri Avnery, former Knesset member, assesses the Lobby's
power. "If the Israeli government wanted a law tomorrow
annulling the 10 Commandments, 95 U.S. Senators (at least) would
sign the bill forthwith." But, yes, in the end the dog wags
the tail.Fifty
years ago Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" blew the cobwebs
out of millions of young minds and drove a stake through the
heart of Eisenhower's America. Lenni Brenner remembers Ginsberg
in the East Village.Dr Mengele died in exile, in disguise. Dr Ishii
died rich and recognized, in his own Tokyo home. Christopher
Reed on Japanese WW2 medical tortures and how the U.S. covered
them up.CounterPunch
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Now!
May Day in North Carolina, USA. The
weather is perfect. A march for immigrant rights begins this
afternoon--part of the nationwide movement to prevent the passage
of a legislation that would make it a felony offense to be in
the US without papers or to help anyone that is here without
said papers. As an organizing pamphlet stated: "Not since
the Fugitive Slave Law of the 1800s has there been such a piece
of repressive legislation passed in the US."
Like the aforementioned Fugitive
Slave Act, HR 4437 would make it a felony to help out a fellow
human being trying to make a better life for themselves and their
family. The point of the protests and the May Day 2006 boycott
was to prevent that legislation, which is known as HR 4437 in
the House. After that point of agreement, the demands diverge.
I've been helping a friend
homeschool her eleven-year-old daughter this semester. The May
Day protest in Asheville was her week's lesson in real democracy.
There are two things that
make a democracy, she told me as we walked from our house to
the Catholic church in downtown Asheville where the opening rally
was taking place when we arrived. The first is protesting for
change and the second is voting.
Tuesday will be this week's
second lesson in democracy, then. That's when North Carolina
holds its primary elections. I hope that the Congressman from
my district will end up with an opponent in November that can
beat him. So did most of the people present at the rally, since
Congressman Taylor voted for HR 4437.
When we arrived at the church,
the speakers were already talking. The primary content of the
speeches was liberal in nature, but the signs and banners varied
from slogans echoing the philosophy summed up best by the words
"No One is Illegal" to signs stating (in Spanish and
English) "Nos somos Americanos."
Besides the speeches, there
were also detailed legal instructions announced repeatedly over
the loudspeakers and distributed in leaflet form throughout the
crowd. These instructions were necessary given the uncertain
immigration status of some of the participants. They included
phone numbers for legal aid should any of the participants face
repeisals in the future because of their participation in the
protest.
One of the speakers asked how
many of the rallygoers had skipped work or school. When the question
was asked in English the response was loud. When the question
was asked in Spanish, the response was deafening. There weren't
that many speeches, since every phrase had to be translated,
either from English to Spanish or from Spanish to English.
The march began. It was orderly
and it was loud. Most of the bystanders, no matter what their
skin tone, honked their car horn or gave another sign of agreement.
Those who disagreed either said nothing or cursed quietly to
their friends. Oh, yeah, there was one guy that held a sign
calling on "Real Americans" to take back their country.
People on the march ignored him. Pointedly.
Before the entire group of
marchers had passed him by, he had left. Slogans shouted by
the marchers varied from "Si Sal Puede" to "El
Pueblo Unido jamas sera vencido" to the variation on the
latter-"Latinos Unido jamas sera vencido."
As the march progressed hundreds
more joined. Most of them were Latinos that had finally made
it downtown. Police were generally pleasant, although there
were some with cameras on parking garage rooftops using telephoto
lenses to take pictures of the march participants. If those
photos end up in the hands of the INS, I won't be surprised.
A band greeted us when we arrived
at the end of the march. When they finished their tune, each
member was introduced with their family's heritage included.
The point was obviously to remind the crowd and the media that
most of us are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants.
In the part of the country
where the Cherokee Trail of Tears began, this should not be big
news. Yet every time a new group of immigrants wants their place
at the US table, it seems like the entire country needs to be
reminded of our real history. The good and the bad.
My homeschool charge and I
left the ending rally after another song by the band. One thing
I noticed as we walked to the bus stop was that downtown Asheville,
which is usually quite slender on Latino faces and the Spanish
language, was full of Latinos this evening.
I don't know what the La Dia
Sin Immigrantes looked like in other parts of the United States,
but here in Asheville, NC it was a day of witness for those of
us who really believe that no human is illegal.
CounterPunch
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