There was once a time when civil and human rights came to grace the forward politics of the Democratic Left, which in the 1960s brought about the beginnings of change in racist American society. The legal changes brought about by the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were subsequently telescoped into a panoply of civil rights causes backed by the Democratic Left affecting discrimination against women, minorities, religious groups, and the disabled. In the 1970s during Jimmy Carter’s Democratic presidency, human rights became an established principle in American foreign policy, one that was followed by no less than Ronald Reagan. Even George Walker Bush later signed legislation enabling disabled Americans to be treated with equality and accommodation.
Indeed the Democratic Left has been the forbearer of all things civil and human in the sphere of rights, at least since the rise of Daily Kos.
Today, there is an allegation that the Democratic Left is back and that it is resident, in of all places, on the internet and that it can be accessed through a huge political blog called Daily Kos. Is that possible? I don’t think so.
At least in the arena of foreign policy, it is not possible to conclude that Daily Kos is representative of the Democratic Left or its human rights project. In fact, it took a book by Jimmy Carter to show Americans how far askew of human rights America has become when it comes to America’s blind support of the apartheid state of Israel, and Israeli’s 60 year project to colonize lands belonging to the Palestinian people. I shall not go into the numerous ways in which America has directly supported civil and human rights violations, grievous injustices, through its carte blanc support of Israel’s right wing governments, but only suggest that our own Republican and Democratic governments, through AIPAC/DLC (moderate Democrat, Republican Lite) politics, has created an “exception” to Democratic Left politics in its support of Israeli discrimination and latter day colonialism. Everyday, Israel adds bodies to the tens of thousands of Palestinians already killed and maimed, and acres of Palestinian land to the tens of thousands already stolen in the West Bank (known as Judea and Samaria in Israeli children’s school books).
Daily Kos has now joined the AIPAC/DLC exception, and veered from the Democratic people-powered Left Wing politics it once espoused.
Two well-known peace activists were recently kicked off Daily Kos, banned because of their criticism of Israeli racism and Israel’s oppression of Palestinian human rights. This banning followed the banning of three other left wing diarists who likewise wrote against Israeli expansionism and ethnic cleansing. In the case of one of these two activists, right wing blog supporters of Avigdor Lieberman, Israel most notorious racist, protested, called Steve Amsel a troll, and he was banned. Remarks and comity by the Kos administrator made clear that Kos was following the wishes of the right wing supporters of Israel.
Steve Amsel is called a Freedom Fighter.
Although advancing in years, he opened a Blog called DesertPeace in 2005, where he courageously asks for Peace, Freedom, and Independence for the Palestinians.
He is an ” Active Peace/Civil Rights Worker, aiming to establish a just and lasting peace between Israel and Palestine, while at the same time continuing the struggle against racism and for peace throughout the world.”
What could be more Democratic Left than these ideals, spoken by a left wing Israeli-American living in Jerusalem.
Have a look to his Blog: http://www.desertpeace.blogspot.com/
Here is Steve’s autobiography:
Some of you might be wondering… Who is this DesertPeace? What makes him tick??
Perhaps I should explain. The saga starts at the tail end of the war (the Big One WW2)… I was named Israel Meyer at my circumcism (Brit), after my paternal grandfather that had been recently murdered in Auschwitz by the nazi beast. (OMG…. bet you didn’t realise I was such an old geezer)…
My father’s cousin advised my father to give me a Christian name “in case the nazis made it to Brooklyn”… so I was named Stephan… the Patron Saint of Hungary… and the first ‘Christian name’ to pop into pop’s head.
I always hated that name… so I went through life simply called Steve. We spoke Yiddish at home when I was a child. Hebrew was ‘reserved’ for the zionists and prayers… neither of which affected me at the time.
There were two ‘camps’ of secular Yiddish speakers in those days… those that read the Morning Freiheit, of the Communist Camp… and those that read the Jewish Daily Forward, of the Social Democrat Camp. Today, the Freiheit is gone…. along with most of its readers. THIS link gives a pretty good picture of the situation today…
There was a resort area in upstate New York where organisations affiliated with these two newspapers had summer camps for children. They were on opposite sides of Sylvan Lake. There was Kinderland for the ‘lefties’ and KinderRing for the ‘righties’.
During the height of the ‘cold war’ we had our own battles on the lakefront… all in fun. No one was ever hurt and a great time was had by both sides.
So… we lived the ideal set down by our parents in those days. There was a term used for children of progressive parents (or even worse, Communist parents)…. we were called ‘Red Diaper Babies’… a term most of us wore with pride.
In 1956, the Premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev made a speech in the Kremlin denouncing his predecessor Joseph Stalin. He ‘exposed’ the atrocities done by him including those against the Jews in the Soviet Union. This speech was the beginning of the end for the Jewish Communist Movements throughout the western world.
But, it was far from the end of the Communist and Progressive Movements in the States or throughout the world.
Despite the Cold War, the Movements grew in the United States; the Civil Rights Movement, the Peace Movement and various International Solidarity Movements.
I was personally involved in all of them, especially the Solidarity Movements. When there was a blockade put around Cuba I was involved in the movement to end it. When America bombed North Viet Nam I was involved in the movement to end the war there. When there was a fascist coup in Greece I was involved in a movement to restore democracy to the land of it’s birth. The same with Chile…. the list goes on and on.
Through my involvement in these various Solidarity Movements I was privileged to meet people from the different countries. This helped me realise that I identified with these people’s struggles because I identified with the people themselves. I was a Greek, Vietnamese, Cuban, Chilean… whatever…
How could that be? I honestly felt that the world was my village.. we were all of the same race; the human race. When one of us was not free… none of us were.
Now I find myself in Israel being outspoken for the rights of the Palestinians. I find nothing odd or special about that although I have been told that I am both or either…
But, if you look at the whole picture you might see why I am the way I am, just the fact that my grandfather was murdered the way he was and by whom had a big influence. Anyone, be he a President of Iran or a university professor in Canada that denies the existence of the holocaust is in my mind an idiot. To deny that it happened is to open the doors for the horror to be repeated. It is a fact that happened and it is a fact that millions of people perished in it… not only Jews, but others as well.
I find myself in a situation regarding the Palestinians of seeing descendents of those murdered by the beast doing it themselves to others. There is no way that I can be silent about it. I, as a Jew, as an Israeli Jew in particular, see the Palestinians as my own people. We share a common history, land and forefather. To sit by and watch the attempted genocide against them would be fratricide on my part; these people are my brothers and sisters.
I take great pride in the fact that I have three citizenships. I was born in the United States so by virtue of that I am an American citizen. I migrated to Canada and lived there for almost twenty years…thereby obtaining Canadian citizenship. I have been living in Israel for twenty two years… and by virtue of the Law of Return (which Palestinian do not have) I am an Israeli citizen. Despite being Jewish and despite being an Israeli citizen I have never lost the ‘Global Outlook’ that makes me who I am, if anything, it has been strengthened.
When Palestine gets its statehood I intend to get my fourth citizenship, then I will really be able to say that the world is my village. Perhaps now, after reading this, you have a better picture of who this guy at the other end of your monitor is…. now you know just what makes DesertPeace tick.
The other peace activist banned from Daily Kos, for no apparent reason, was Eileen Fleming.
Eileen’s Blog is here: http://www.wearewideawake.org/
This her autobiography:
When I was a child, my dream was to grow up and become Brenda Starr, the red headed, ace investigative journalist, who was smarter than the guys, glamorous and headstrong.
Star reporter for the metropolitan daily, The Flash, Brenda traveled the world solving mysteries and unearthing scoops. Brenda intuitively knew when somebody was not telling the truth. She boldly went around the world searching for unusual and usually dangerous stories.
I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territories four times since June 2005.
Brenda is my muse, but my role model and mentor is Dorothy Day, who agitated church, state and media in her time through her publication, The Catholic Worker, which persists today.
So, This is 53…
In the year 2000, I was a first year student in an Episcopal-Methodist Formation Program for Spiritual Directors. I knew going into the program that I would NOT be hanging out a shingle as a SD. I was there for the curriculum; studying the saints and ways of prayer. That is also when I began to write creative spiritual literature.
Before 9/11, I did not give too much thought for another beyond my rural community. I was apolitical, thought the world had already gone mad and there was nothing much anyone could do or say to change it. I lived a simple contended life in the rural South and have always been grateful to be an American.
But after 9/11, I wanted to learn why did a few-and back then it was but a few-people in the world hated Americans so much that they could cold bloodedly murder innocent people. I also wanted to do some good in the world and that lead me to the Interfaith Olive Trees Foundation for Peace http://www.olivetreesfoundation.org and then to journey four times into Israel Palestine.
St. Augustine penned: “HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it.
Education is The Way to Compassion; and Compassion is The Way to Change. And so, I have researched, studied and I write.
KEEP HOPE ALIVE, is available as a paperback and also is posted on the blog beginning February 7th through March 9, 2007.
I entitled my second book;
Memoirs of a Nice Irish American Girl’s Life in Occupied Territory: Third Intifada/Uprising: Nonviolent, But with Words Sharper than a Two-Edged Sword, because the following words ran through my head all during my fourth journey to Palestine in November 2006.
“The word of God is living and active. Sharper than a two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him whom we must give account.”- Hebrews 4:12-13
Both of these peace activists are deeply and sincerely involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and with bringing out the truth rather than the false propaganda that characterizes American perspectives. However, both of them failed the new test of the Democratic Left on Daily Kos: Israel is exceptional and cannot be held to any American principles and standards concerning civil and human rights.
Banned them both, Kos did. But to what purpose?
The peace movement cannot be stopped, and the Democratic Left will never move backward; only forward.
UPDATE: There was some notion passing around the Eileen Fleming was not banned after all. Not so. Here her reply to my email concerning the issue:
“YES i most definitely was banned/blocked from posting on March 14, 2007 after posting:
When I attempted to post a diary the next day I got a message that I had broken a copyright rule and needed to reply that i understood.
I did NOT understand, but i accepted their statement and that was the final correspondence from them- although i emailed at least 6 people at DK to repent and attempt to fix their problem with me, but I gave up trying after about a week.”
No question that Eileen was banned. Now it seems that Daily Kos is embarassed by the position it took and claimed that Eileen was not banned. What they did was to lift the ban, and Eileen is back. For how long? Guess that will depend on the right wing Zionists and how much the harass, not Eileen, but Kos administrators, who apparently conform to their wishes.
Can you link to the diaries or posts that got them banned?
Or did they just show up one day to find they could no longer login and post?
Sorry Steve, but it is Sunday and I don’t have the time. Eileen Fleming said she wrote and never got a reply. As for Steve Amsel, he oft times post cartoons on his blog by Ben Heine. That association as well as the fact that I know Steve Amsel through the internet was given as reason enough. Hunter simply, I think I’ll do it anyway.
As for Ben Heine, he was also banned. There were a great outcry about a cartoon he posted, which incensed supporters of Avidgor Lieberman, the Israeli racist. Ben so of morphed his portrait into Hitler’s and the truth was too hard to accept, in spite of the fact that Israeli and Jewish commentators on Lieberman’s appointment to the Israeli Cabinet, also likened him to a Nazi.
It appears that there is now a Checklist of AntiSemitism made up by an officer of a right wing Zionist organization, JVC, who included comparisons with Nazi Germany as automatically being antiSemitic. This same guy included criticism of Israel in the list of what makes for antiSemitism.
Steve, I had time to look this up on Steve Amsel.
Well Hunter (4+ / 0-)
Although these diaries are a long standing problem, I’m afraid this particular bullshit shitstorm is my fault given that I emailed you. I don’t usually email you about anything at all (in fact, I don’t recall if I have ever done so), and I am only an occasional participant in these diaries. It appears, however, that I was wrong in my email suggesting I believed desertpeace was shergald, and I apologize for that.
I said this above, but it warrants repeating to you here. I’ve googled the desertpeace site (which obviously I should have done earlier), and it appears shergald is not desertpeace. I found several posts where shergald, commenting as himself, is talking to desertpeace. I believe my error in memory came for some strange reason from that Ben Heine diary which I think was posted around the time shergald was banned.
McCain luvs W
by taylormattd on Thu May 10, 2007 at 02:17:33 PM PDT
§ I’ve banned him anyway. (4+ / 0-)
No, he’s not shergald, but the only reason he didn’t hit autoban today is because he didn’t post any comments in his own diary… which counts as sufficiently manipulative that, when added to a cartoon taken from one banned poster and and an offsite association with another, I’m not going to feel bad about it.
by Hunter on Thu May 10, 2007 at 02:36:13 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
In short, Hunter banned him “anyway” because he felt the right wing Zionists would have troll rated any comments he might have made, regardless of the content of the diary. In other words, Hunter would have accepted misuse of the troll rating system, in spite of the rules, or alleged rules, and the fact that he is talking to a group of right wing Zionists, who persistently hijack diaries as any trolls might, and turn them into muckfests. He also banned for guilt by association, for using a cartoon by Ben Heine (whose cartoons are now censored because most of them are about peace, I gather) and Steve Amsel’s association with me. He is a blog friend of mine and we talk sometimes via email.
This is now what Daily Kos has now turned into. Peace activists getting banned on the say so of right wing extremists. It is as if the KKK had taken over DKos and demanded the banning of Jesse Jackson or even Martin Luther King.
I’ve lost all respect for Hunter frankly, so this doesn’t surprise me. Thanks for taking the time to post about this. DKos is becoming more and more like Freeperville in what is and isn’t permitted.
Kos owns Daily Kos. BUT HE DOES NOT MEAND HE OWNS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OR ANY PORTION OF IT, LEFT OR CENTER. THAT SIMPLY MEANS THAT HE DOES NOT OWN THE CONTENT OF HIS BLOG. YET, BY BEING ABLE TO BAN AND CONTROL WHO GETS ON HIS SITE, HE IS CONTROLLING CONTENT AND THEREBY POSITIONS THE LEFT WING MIGHT TAKE.
That he would even attempt to censor content about Democratic positions, whether that involves domestic policy or foreign policy, will not be tolerated.
Kos is just one person; he is not a party. Fore that matter, many Democrats do not support some of his positions. Kos is now too large for that. He ought to take his money and keep running and leave the politics to the members.
Fore that matter, many Democrats do not support some of his positions.
Kos only has one position: victory by any means necessary.
That and the wad in his wallet
Hi,
Thanks for the plug,
And what i understand,
To be the demise of my 3 day ‘career’ on DailyKos,
As far as I can surmise:,
And that is all I can do,
For although, I emailed over half a dozen people at DailyKos to talk to me as to how I could rectify my sin against their empire that got me banned;
NOT one of them had the desire to email me back.
So, the best I can surmise is that because I did not include a broken link to a few quotes sited from a newspaper article someone had forwarded to me about a neo-Christian Zionist’s pep rally where John Hagee-the epitome of the Anti-Christ-was igniting the lust for Armageddon by fear-filled, miss-informed, uninformed, apathetic, dare I say: cold hearted Stage 2 souls that flock to Anti-Christ leaders such as Hagee;
I was forever banned without a trial; without charges!!!
I kicked the dust off my feet and am easily read @ my site and recent articles are @
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php?s=eileen+fleming&sentence=AND&submit
=Search
Eileen Fleming, Passionate Member of The New Fourth Estate: Civilian journalists/bloggers who do NOT take orders from editors or paychecks from conglomerates.
We just follow our heart and tell the truth.
e
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
No Eileen. You were banned because you spoke up about the plight of the Palestinians. That is it purely and simply. The right wing Zionists have pretty much taken over policy with respect to what one is free to speak about at Daily Kos. I was banned twice without reason, until finally, a “meta” diary appeared by the second in command, Hunter, who simply stated, no reason is needed. Of course there is always a reason, but in our cases, it would be embarrassing to say what it is.
Keep up your good works.
Buck up, shergald. What this signifies is that blogs have become a real threat to right-wing Zionism. For a long, long time, they were able to control the public dialog (to the extent that it was a dialog at all) through their influence over the old media.
The essentially insoluble problem they face now is that the decentralized nature of the blogosphere means that there will always be blogs where Likudnik dogma can be challenged without censorship. Moreover, the existence of sites like YouTube and Flickr mean that it is increasingly possible to see what is really going on in the occupied territories without the rose-colored filters of the official media.
In short, a concerted effort to suppress the message is usually a good sign that it has become a real threat to the status quo.
There is no doubt in my mind that Daily Kos has been infiltrated with GIYUS and TIP operatives, who are there to counteract any criticism or Israel or mention of the true situation in the West Bank.
All the time, I see right wing members at Daily Kos repeating propaganda on the site, using it in fact as a portal to reinforce lies, half truths, and themes, which are intentionally decontextualized to place Palestinians in a bad light. Many of these themes were discussed in Peace, Propaganda, & The Promised Land, but others reflect the recommendations of right wing consultants like Frank Luntz. E.g., one guy over at Daily Kos keeps repeating Luntz nonsense about the “generous offer,” in fact, posting many diaries on this old myth. Another is the Clinton Peace Initiative which is clearly a pathway to a Bantustan Palestinian state. Others in the right wing proIsrael camp are well versed in how to repeat the “terrorist” meme and other “talking points” and to suppress use of terms which imply military occupation or colonialism.
The right wing Zionist operatives are so well organized that they keep dossiers on proPalestinian bloggers, which they share among themselves. There is obvious backtalk behind the scenes. A group constitute what has come to be known as the “diary police,” doing whatever they can to get diaries ripped off the face page or diarists banned.
If one brings up what this group is doing, he risks being called a conspiracy theorist and may be subject to banning. But there is little question that Daily Kos is a target of the Israeli propaganda effort. Routinely, they operate in groups to hijack diaries, distract from the content, demean the diarist, and other tactics intended to turn the diary into a flame war. They then turn around and complain that these diaries should be banned or restricted or rules imposed that would diminish the frequency. Their goal of course is to get them off of Daily Kos.
While you are correct in your assessment of the way that the right wing Zionist fringe is threatened by a diverse, open discussion, I am more concerned by the mechanism.
In the past year I’ve noted the immediate–almost uncanny–way that certain types of comments are found (no matter what the title of the diary), trashed, and the threads hijacked. I’ve seen this not only in the discussions of Arab-Israeli relationships, but in any discussion of guns at all. It’s almost as if they have “bots” that bring them out of the woodwork immediately.
That they put that much effort into it may seem positive, but it’s still destruction of the process. It needs to end.
I’ve noticed the thoroughness as well. Actually saying so leaves one open to accusations of paranoid conspiracy theories, so I’m giving some thought to creating a series of “honeypots” as part of a controlled experiment to document it.
The problem is that you, and others, continue to believe this “allegation”:
dkos is about getting Democrats elected, nothing more, nothing less. Posts about other subjects are, at best, tolerated. If you were expecting a haven for progressive politics, you need to look elsewhere.
But this is not exactly a secret, it has been this way for some time. It begs the question why such subject matter continues to be posted there rather than at more accepting venues. There are literally daily flame wars in I/P postings.
Sorry, a dailyLook at the rec list disproves this easily. Oh, I know what the mission statement says, but this is the “reality based” community, and the mission statement is nothing more than a talking point these days.
What’s on the rec list is irrelevant, it is a reflection of reader whims not those of management. What is relevant are the things that get “disappeared” by management.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this point.
here it is:
and your position regarding the subject under discussion is..what?
thanks for stopping by…you may now return to your regularly scheduled programming
lTMF’sA
Count them, exactly one diary promoting a dem running for office. Nuff said! Sorry, the whole mission statement thing is a talking point and nothing more. Frankly, I’m here because I’m sick of it over there.
which b2 and l alluded to, and l specifically asked you about….is what is your point?…specifically, in regards to the subject at hand.
you may well be …sick of it over there...but your comments are, frankly, immaterial to the subject of this diary.
highjacking threads, especially w/ specious and straw man arguments, is not something that is likely to endear you here.
that’s all the time l have to devote to you…keep trying, and, if you’re looking for discussion, on topic, without the bs, stick around, otherwise good day.
lTMF’sA
All right, I’m home from work now and will happily explain the obvious to you, but only once so pay attention.
But before I do, let me set you straight. I don’t owe you any explanation because you can’t discern the obvious.
Your BFF wrote: “dkos is about getting Democrats elected, nothing more, nothing less. Posts about other subjects are, at best, tolerated.”
The rec list is a good example of how wrong this argument is because only a few rec’d diaries conform to the mission statement.
Your BFF would then have us believe: “What’s on the rec list is irrelevant, it is a reflection of reader whims not those of management.” DKos is what it is because of its bandwidth; cut out the “whims” of the “readers” and you’ve got nothing. Markos knows this and so do his surrogates. Obviously, you two don’t.
Is that really too hard for you to understand?
So instead of engaging in a meaningless argument, like this one, I decide to say better to just agree to disagree. Then you come along and start being condescending – which is exactly the BS I was getting sick of over there – that and the diary/comment police… Congratulations, you’re a double winner!
The point is not trivial and is often used to claim that diaries about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have nothing to do with electing Democrats.
That notion of course is always proposed in an attempt to suppress such diaries, as if the IP situation had nothing to do with our foreign policy. Just recall the genuflections of various Democratic presidential candidates before AIPAC recently and you will be disaffected of the thought. What a candidate proposes as to solutions to the IP conflict could very well have consequences for his electability.
A tangential but relevant point, therefore.
I seriously doubt that “rank and file” Americans have any idea what the various candidates propose regarding I/P issues. Reasons why that is so could likely fill a good sized book. But any impact upon the outcome of an election is likely very small, if it exists at all.
About three quarters of polled Americans believe that there should be a two state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. It is not as if people are totally ignorant about the issue. On the other hand, I can agree that issues such as the price of gasoline and who Brittany Spears is dating may be more important in the short run.
Perhaps the best measure of their importance is the degree to which right wing Israel supporter want to see them done away with.
I was working in West Palm Beach just before the last election, when a flyer came out suggesting that Kerry was “soft on protecting Israel.” It was like a fire blew through the county. EVERYONE knew the positions, to the finest detail.
Well, that is the stated goal of Daily Kos. But to suggest that foreign policy and civil/human rights issues are not part of politics is just nonsense.
IP is a core issue in our foreign policy and the positions candidates take on it and related issues, e.g., Iraq, Syria, Iran, the community of Arab states is central to electability. As just one voter, I would not likely vote for a candidate who is in the pocket of AIPAC and more than I would vote for one who takes money from big oil.
Therefore, while diaries about pet food and circumcision may seem irrelevant, those about the middle east and Israel have everything to do with politics and electability.
The notion that IP has nothing to do with Democrats’ electability is furthermore a repeated notion from right wing Zionists, who would like to see diaries about it banned from Daily Kos.
I didn’t suggest what politics includes or should include, I’m merely providing a statement that summarizes the goings on at dkos. Post whatever you like here, there or everywhere you can. But why posters of I/P diaries at dkos can’t see that their energies might be better utilized at other venues is something I have yet to understand. I have spent considerable time at dkos reading those posts and the those that don’t result in flamewars are rare indeed. And it is more than just a few individuals that are involved.
First, if the Democratic Left loses this issue, it might as well go to hell along with the bought out AIPAC/DLC crowd. Keeping it alive is one purpose of the IP arena. Second, if the Democratic Left cannot maintain its civil and human rights agenda at home and abroad, there is little purpose in speaking of a Democratic Left. Just how do we really differ from the centrists, the moderates, and the Republican Lites?
On the other hand, even though I have gotten deep into those flame wars at DKos, I can pretty much agree that the commentary is useless. What is important is the diary itself and the messages it carries about human rights and injustice.
And the stuff that is merely tolerated includes my own stuff.
The Illuminati plan to destroy America!
well, “Right wing Zionists” is shorter than what I call them, which is “the Israel-must-not-be-criticized gang”.
Love the four horsemen quote!
Right Wing Zionists is a reference to supporters of the Labor/Kadima/Likud factions in Israel, who either do not support a Palestinian state or support plans which will lead to nothing less than a Bantustan state. The result of this position is a Greater Israel, an Israel from the Jordan Valley to the sea.
By implication, right wing ZIonists also support the continuing colonization of Palestinian land that continues today.
Correspondingly, these Zionists typically perpetuate propaganda about the IP conflict built on falsehoods and repeated lies that justify the colonial action in the West Bank. Of late, this has taken the form of calling Palestinians “terrorists” and making claims about Palestinians’ unwillingness to acknowledge Israel’s “right to exist,” which is only the latest stumbling block purposefully thrown out there to enable Israel to avoid peace negotiations.
Israel is a master at avoiding peace negotiations.
Does this help?
Isn’t this term redundant? AFAIK, there are no left-wing or centrist Zionists anymore.
I don’t see why Booman still has dKos on the blogroll.
In a sense you are correct; in another sense, not.
As just one example, Uri Avnery, the peace activist, supports something like “soft” Zionism, taking to task the notion that Israel could ever be a “democratic and Jewish state” at the same time. It’s an oxymoron. Actually, it is more than an oxymoron, since there are Israeli laws which discriminate against nonJews and laws which favor Jews. Welfare payments to Israeli Jews in need are much higher than payments to Israeli Arabs, for example.
Avnery’s view is that Israel should drop the pretense and treat everyone alike. But he also takes the view that Israel can remain a majority Jewish state through population control. That point has given rise to criticism of himself as a hypocrite.
Right wing Zionist in my use of the term refers to people who support a no state solution or a bantustan solution in which the Palestinians live in enclaves inside of a Greater Israel, one that includes Judea and Samaria but tolerates the presence of Palestinians in the manner the Apartheid South Africans did.
Thanks for clearing that up. I didn’t know that about Uri Avnery.
I might as well observe that there is rhetorical consideration here. If one employs the term “Zionist” without qualification in this context, one turns it into a pejorative term, and hence runs the risk sounding too left to be in the American political mainstream. It’s always nice to see our side showing sophistication in their use of language. Too often we unconsciously let the right control the terminology we use.
Thank god for myleftwing and booman.
Well, my two cents.
First, my wake up call on Israel and AIPAC and US policy came after 911 when I buried myself in research on the ME,… the British National Archives, the Presidential Libaries starting with Truman, searches on Thomas and Govtrac for all legistation pertaining to Israel and the ME, the Libary of Congress for historical documents and maps of the region and any other non Jewish, non Arab, non religious, non baised source I could find. My conclusions based on the “facts”..Israel is in the wrong and AIPAC has corrupted American policy and principles in that region. Period.
As for DKos, I read it off and on but not regularly, just enough to get the gist and notice trends in daries on that site for about a year. Watching it for a while my conclusion was….Kos is a opportunist who thinks he can carve out a paid position and stature within the polical industry. And since America loves a circus and circus freaks he was accepted by “joiners” looking for leaders and wanting to “belong” to something.
My other conclusion….I noticed that Kos was indeed inflitrated by the more “agressive” zionist types. Every time I would read any diary on israel is was full of the aol swarm calling everyone anti-semites. After that slur wore out their fall back position aside from the Bible and “terrorism” was promoted as, “if the dems don’t support Israel they won’t get the votes”..a not very good sort of blackmail and not very effecitve on anyone but Kos evidently becuase I noticed the best non baised and balanced writers on that subject disappeared. Kos pretends to rail against the “establishment, but proves he is desperately trying to be part of it by catering to this type of spin by the right wing zionist and the ‘establishment dems” who cater to AIPAC becuase of their own ideology or for money from redical zionist who have no concern about actual US policy, only the policy directed for Israel…but try to tie being a democrat to unconditional support for Greater Israel.
It’s nonsense of course and has turned off more “grownup dems” like me to voting for or donating to certain dems than anything else.
Case in point, when I read about Betty McCollum standing up to the nutcase AIPAC’er who accused her of being on the terrorist side I called her office and sent her re-election campaign large check…specifically saying why I was doing so.
You heard it here first…both DKos and militant zionism elements in this country are headed to Jurrisac Park…DKos is doing nothing for the dems…except exposing what some of us don’t like about some of them and ensuring some of us won’t vote for them unless they change their position on unconditional support of Israel and get with a realistic “American” foreign policy. The DKos’ers and the more militant zionist are in the minority, like the freepers, they just don’t know it because they are trapped in their own echo chamber.
Every media outlet has its biases and I can’t think of one which allows things that rub them the wrong way to be tolerated for long.
I wrote an essay a few weeks ago in which I mentioned in passing that Israel was an example of a theocracy (along with several other countries). This caused a heated side discussion by two readers over whether it was or not (not my main point) and one of the (anonymous) moderators changed my tags to “troll”.
Kos also goes ballistic when 9/11 conspiracy nuts start in. The site is imperfect, it has probably gotten a bit too big and it is run by someone who has conflicting ideas about government.
The saving grace is that those who want to discuss topics outside its core concerns are free to go elsewhere or start their own forum. Is this entirely fair? No, but think of the days before the internet. If you had a dispute with a print publication what were your options?
Be grateful for what we have and don’t spend any time worrying about such imperfect sites. If you are really concerned about an issue, devote your energies to that.
If I may say so, you are both right and wrong.
Right you are in that media biases do exist. It would not be possible to think of Daily Kos and Red State as sharing some kind of objective positions, obviously. They are Democratic and Republican sites, respectfully. Everyone knows that and expects them to be biased toward their biased political positions.
Now what you said could apply to Red State, because its own writers serve up the positions it takes. Daily Kos, on the other hand, serves up both a frontpage set of positions and a member determined set of positions because of its unique contributor format. Just take a look at the debate over illegal immigration that went on for months at Daily Kos. Nobody interfered with freedom of expression in that arena, and there were diaries for and against throughout the period of debate.
That is the problem. Somebody now proposes they have a right to interfere with the debate pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is to some, including me, a core issue in American foreign policy.
By what right does a blog administrator seek to monitor and censor content concerning this issue by using its banning power to get rid of opinions it may not accord with?
Let me go further. Some believe that Daily Kos has become a rallying place for Left Wing Democrats, who have an agenda of their own, which distinguishes it from the agenda of the centrists or moderate Democrats. Given the huge size of Daily Kos, and its influence, should one person, Kos, now have the power to determine what agenda the Left Wing Democrats will follow, what topics these Democrats are allowed to discuss on the blog, the content?
This is politics, after all, and if a blog proports to represent a sector of a major party, no one should expect or allow that he/she may have the power to curtail discussion of party positions.
By banning these peace activists, Kos acted in a manner to say, I will determine what content shall appear on my blog and because I own it, no one can do a damned thing about it. Kos knows better, or you would think so. He has acknowledged his ownership of the blog, but admits he does not own the “content.” That being the case, by these banning actions, he has slipped into a dangerous mode of trying to determine the content of the blog, the political positions of the Left Wing.
The only thing I can recommend in reprisal is for every Left Wing Democrat to get over there, sign up, and take back their party. The Democratic party belongs to no one.
What if all the energy that was spent going after the Orange Frat House was put into promoting blogs that are doing good work?
There is a new diary at dKos about how the son of a conservative Boston University professor who has been against the war from the start has just gotten killed while deployed in Iraq.
I made the following post on that diary:
My post is no longer present, which means it must have been troll-rated into oblivion.
It’s pretty clear that since there was no case for war, the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq are illegal. Thus, orders for U.S. military military personnel to deploy to Iraq are illegal. The idea that American officers should not obey illegal orders should not be controversial. Yet my comment was troll-rated.
This doesn’t even directly have anything to do with the Israel lobby. It’s simply about maintaining the integrity of our military as an institution that observes the law of the land. And yet raising this issue leads to suppression at the Daily Kos.
I really think Booman should take dKos off his blogroll. The suppression of debate that deviates in the slightest bit from what is currently considered by the status quo as acceptable opinion makes clear that the Daily Kos cannot be considered as a proper representative of progressive opinion. So get it off the blogroll: today, it is nothing more than a Trojan horse for regressives to misrepresent and obfuscate progressive opinion.
I second kicking The Orange Frat House off of the blogroll. This site is too great to be associated with them.
The repression on Daily Kos doesn’t bode well for America, and is another example of degrees of fascism. Our best response is to invite those two peace activists to post here.
I was wondering what happened to you. I didn’t know you were banned until I read this diary. I always loved your stuff. Thanks for posting this here. Was Mattes banned also? I stopped being a regular there a long time ago. Anyway, I think the diary police are helping blogs like Booman. I only started checking this site out after the BS got to be too much over there. Keep up the good work. It is appreciated.
Thanks.
I was banned twice without reason. When other IP diarists were likewise banned without reason, Hunter put up a meta diary and stated that no reason is necessary. None of us including those this diary is about were ever told why they were banned.
Mattes is still there.
Today, two Palestinian peace activists were also banned. I am writing about it today.
Agree with your assessment.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/16/15312/3407
Someone wasn’t actually banned.