Politics

NOVANEWS Matt Taylor responds again. he is masochist how anyone could seriously contemplate non-violence after reading Matthew's latest is hard to understand. See him here. I say: Matthew, I have learned something! You are 36 years old. When we started off, I thought you were my age or younger, and this explained why you are such a silly twerp and aren’t so good at reading, but now I realize that you are a fully-grown-up twerp. I think you're probably stuck with being that twerp for the rest of your life. Critical literacy, honest, ethics are things you still have a shot at, though the prospects aren’t good. Lesson is on. Pay attention. Let’s start with the core of the first tutorial: the question of non-violence as a “principle” versus a tactic. You have asserted—but not defended—the bin...

NOVANEWS 2 items: American tour and a video 5 July, 2010 From: "Gilad Atzmon" <gilad@gilad.co.uk> Add sender to Contacts Atzmon and Siegel in Rochester and Geneva by Dan McGowan July 4, 2010  Gilad Atzmon “Within the borders controlled today by Israel (that is, all the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River) there already exists a single state.  It has one electrical grid, one road system, one monetary authority, one postal authority, one water system, etc.” Dan McGowan Following is Dan McGowan’s report of  my first two public engagements  in the  USA (Rochester and Geneva). In these two meetings I shared platform with Rich Siegel, an incredible musician, a genuine humanist and a friend.  In recent years Rich made an unusual journey. He drifted away f...

NOVANEWS Guest post from Sayres Rudy, who has no idea why we're talking about Gandhi and is offering a special tutorial to the Peace and Conflict Studies community entitled, How to Detect Intellectual Fraud. Note how perverse this is.  How did Gandhi get privileged?  Why didn't Gramsci, Kropotkin, or Luxemburg, or some mad militant.  there is a line by charles taylor bout religion where he says, in essence, let's suppose there is a god.  then what?  no matter what, we are charged with interpretation of what "God" as concept and as Lawgiver actually means, says, represents.  So somehow here is our trajectory. Palestinians are dispossessed and etc. for 50 years or a century, and the Israelis have proven repeatedly that they are maximalists who prefer to win than compromise, where winning mea...

Octavia Nasr,20-year CNN career ended over a tweet. UK ambassador Frances Guy removes blog post under pressure. More Recent Articles Search MuzzleWatch Octavia Nasr,20-year CNN career ended over a tweet. UK ambassador Frances Guy removes blog post under pressure. There’s really little to add to Glenn Greenwald’s comprehensive post on the hypocritical firing of (until now, the very safe and non-controversial) CNN Senior Middle East News Editor Octavia Nasr over just one short tweet she posted this weekend: “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah  . . . . One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.” Fadlallah was one of the world’s most revered Shia leaders. He was also the religious leader most associated with the political party of US ally Iraqi Prime Minister ...

NOVANEWS Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has already made two announcements this week, declaring that schools should revive the art of "deep thought", and cancelling £700m worth of school building projects. Which is handy, because for deep thought all you need is a hill to sit on and you can contemplate for months at a time without ever needing to go indoors. You don't hear Tibetan monks grumbling, "Ooh, I don't have a building to sit in, so how can I become at one with the rhythm of my own breathing? Please, master, my mum said I shouldn't sit out in a strong wind for more than three days?"  The initiative is typical of the imaginative thinking within the new politics. For example, one early casualty of education cuts has been swimming classes. And in many areas local authorities a...

NOVANEWS Ken O’Keefe Joins Veterans Today Staff Writing Team July 7, 2010 by John Allen   Ken is a former U.S. Marine who served in the 1991 Gulf War and subsequently spoke out about the use of depleted uranium as a “crime against humanity” and the US military using soldiers as “human guinea pigs” with experimental drugs that were directly linked to Gulf War syndrome. He is also a social entrepreneur utilizing direct action marine conservation, he is more widely known for leading the human shield action to Iraq and as a survivor of the Israeli attack on the MV Mavi Marmara in which he participated in “defending the ship” and “disarming two Israeli Commandos”. On January 7, 2004, O’Keefe burned his US passport in protest of “American Imperialism” and called for US troops to immediately w...

NOVANEWS by Mark Curtis Mark Curtis is an independent author, journalist and consultant. He is the author of ‘Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses’ and ‘Web of Deceit: Britain’s Real Role in the World’, amongst other works. He spoke to NLP on the topic of British collusion with radical Islam. Can you tell us what your new book - ‘Secret affairs: Britain’s collusion with radical Islam’ is about. What do you want to convey? What are your hopes for the book? The book tells the story of the long history of British collaboration with radical Islam, including terrorist groups. 7/7 and the present broader terrorist threat to Britain is to some degree a product of British foreign policy – the bombings derived from a terrorism infrastructure established by a Pakistani state long backed by...

NOVANEWS Before we fully assess the current relationship of the US to the Zionist regime, I suggest that we balance analyses as Yossi Verter's below that Netanyahu returned from Washington with 'egg all over his face' with all the facts, and particularly those that show that for the present it's business as usual between the US and Zionist regime. Below are 2 such items. They would seem to suggest that whatever the situation between Obama and Netanyahu, nothing appears has changed in the relationship between the US and Zionism: (1)the US continues to vote against UN resolutions critical of Zionism, and (2) continues to sell arms to the Zio=Nazi regime in 'Israel'. Sorry to sound a sour note to Sol's enthusiasm and analyses by experts as Akiva Eldar and Yossi Verter, but actions speak loude...

NOVANEWS Norman Finkelstein may be a curmudgeon who can barely contain his contempt for institutions he feels have violated the public trust. But look past the attitude and sometimes poor choices (which, after all, Finkelstein’s nemesis Dershowitz has in spades) and he’s an excellent, even obsessively detailed scholar, and certainly no anti-Semite. And he’s fundamentally morally right. We Jews especially should be outraged. Finkelstein is someone possessed with the intense and justified anger of a son of concentration camp survivors who saw his parents’ devastating experiences exploited while they received little support. He rails against not just the financial but also the ideological exploitation of the Holocaust. And I think he has the rage of disappointment of the loyal Jewish son who ...

NOVANEWS WASHINGTON – March 23 – Shortly after announcing Israel’s commitment to defense in his address to the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Gala, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was disrupted by a demonstrator. Rae Abileah, 27, from Half Moon Bay, CA, jumped onto AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr’s private table alongside the stage and unfurled a pink banner that said “Netanyahu: Build Peace Not Settlements!” Abileah shouted, “Lift the siege of Gaza! No illegal settlements!” as she was forcefully removed from the building. A second disruption came moments later from Joan Stallard, from Washington, DC, who shouted, “Stop the settlements!” Today, Tuesday, March 23, at noon CODEPINK is planning to build a settlement (including homes and beds) inside Se...