Jon Stewart Hosts Nonviolent Palestinian, Jewish Partners for Peace: Video

Unedited Video posted below . The on air video was edited to eliminate the criticism of US media silence on this issue. Are we seeing a crack in our own Media Iron Curtain? Thanks to Jon and his producers are in order. There was pressure on the show to not air this at all.

interview pt 1

interview-pt 2


these comments from an eyewitness MOndweiss: "The interview ran nearly 15 minutes and it was clear it would have to be edited down to air it. The full interview is posted above, and it is well worth watching the whole thing. Right off the bat it was clear this would be a historic moment:

Baltzer: "We’re part of a large movement of Palestinian and Jews working together. This is not new or novel."

Barghouti: "Jewish Americans have been in the avant garde struggling for justice, in this country at least, and for democracy and in this particular case it is just normal that people like Anna are with us because we are struggling for liberty, we’re struggling for freedom, we’re struggling for justice."

Then, as Dr. Barghouti said that Palestinians have been subjected to a system of segregation, the man with slicked back hair sitting directly in front of me pulled a Joe Wilson and yelled "Liar!" (it’s at 1:49 of the first part of the interview).

Dr. Barghouti was unfazed and explained his reason for working with Anna – "It’s just natural to have an alliance of people who believe in the same values." He returned to this theme of values several times and applause grew every time. He finally made it clear what the Palestinians are calling for – equal rights.

Over the next few minutes he mentioned the names of leaders in whose footsteps he’s following – Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. With each passing mention the trio in front of me squirmed in their seats, and most of the rest of the audience grew more excited.

I think Stewart did a reasonable job with the interview. Although the version that ran on air made it look like he dominated the conversation, in fact he gave the speakers plenty of time to make their points. When he gave them the obligatory question on Israel’s security, Baltzer hit it out of the park:

There is nothing defensive about denying Palestinians water. There is nothing defensive about preventing people from having materials to build their homes. So many of the institutions that I understood to be defensive cannot be justified by security anymore. Building a wall between Palestinians and Palestinians?

This was too much for "Slick" in front of me to take, and he burst out again. You can hear him in the background at 7:47 of the first clip. He was escorted from the studio at 8:11 where he was belittled by Stewart ("Bye sir, you can, uh, certainly visit our sedar"). The crowd laughed and cheered as he was led away, and his faux fur clad friend was truly perplexed both by what Baltzer was saying ("Why is she saying that? What is she saying?"), as well as the crowd’s overwhelming support for the speakers.

I don’t want to recount the whole interview, you can watch it. I have to say, I was blown away. Although I was laughing out loud for the first two segments, I was on the verge of tears throughout the interview. Here was a Palestinian leader demanding equal rights and an anti-Zionist Jew calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel towards peace on The Daily Show and they were being applauded, while the traditional pro-Israel hasbara was being shown the door.

Palestinian equal rights was placed directly next to health care and the economy on The Daily Show’s progressive agenda and the audience was totally along for the ride. I could hardly believe my eyes, and yet it made perfect sense at the same time. Who can argue that it is necessary to deny people water? Who can argue against equal rights? The answer is increasingly no one, and if The Daily Show’s audience is any indication, the next generation will be leading this fight in a much different direction."
Unedited Video posted below these comments form an eyewitness. The on air video was edited to eliminate the criticism of US media silence on this issue. Are we seeing a crackin our own Media Iron Curtain? Thanks to Jon are in order. There was pressure on the show to not air this at all.

Eyewitness MOndweiss: "The interview ran nearly 15 minutes and it was clear it would have to be edited down to air it. The full interview is posted above, and it is well worth watching the whole thing. Right off the bat it was clear this would be a historic moment:

Baltzer: "We’re part of a large movement of Palestinian and Jews working together. This is not new or novel."

Barghouti: "Jewish Americans have been in the avant garde struggling for justice, in this country at least, and for democracy and in this particular case it is just normal that people like Anna are with us because we are struggling for liberty, we’re struggling for freedom, we’re struggling for justice."

Then, as Dr. Barghouti said that Palestinians have been subjected to a system of segregation, the man with slicked back hair sitting directly in front of me pulled a Joe Wilson and yelled "Liar!" (it’s at 1:49 of the first part of the interview).

Dr. Barghouti was unfazed and explained his reason for working with Anna – "It’s just natural to have an alliance of people who believe in the same values." He returned to this theme of values several times and applause grew every time. He finally made it clear what the Palestinians are calling for – equal rights.

Over the next few minutes he mentioned the names of leaders in whose footsteps he’s following – Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. With each passing mention the trio in front of me squirmed in their seats, and most of the rest of the audience grew more excited.

I think Stewart did a reasonable job with the interview. Although the version that ran on air made it look like he dominated the conversation, in fact he gave the speakers plenty of time to make their points. When he gave them the obligatory question on Israel’s security, Baltzer hit it out of the park:

There is nothing defensive about denying Palestinians water. There is nothing defensive about preventing people from having materials to build their homes. So many of the institutions that I understood to be defensive cannot be justified by security anymore. Building a wall between Palestinians and Palestinians?

This was too much for "Slick" in front of me to take, and he burst out again. You can hear him in the background at 7:47 of the first clip. He was escorted from the studio at 8:11 where he was belittled by Stewart ("Bye sir, you can, uh, certainly visit our sedar"). The crowd laughed and cheered as he was led away, and his faux fur clad friend was truly perplexed both by what Baltzer was saying ("Why is she saying that? What is she saying?"), as well as the crowd’s overwhelming support for the speakers.

I don’t want to recount the whole interview, you can watch it. I have to say, I was blown away. Although I was laughing out loud for the first two segments, I was on the verge of tears throughout the interview. Here was a Palestinian leader demanding equal rights and an anti-Zionist Jew calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel towards peace on The Daily Show and they were being applauded, while the traditional pro-Israel hasbara was being shown the door.

Palestinian equal rights was placed directly next to health care and the economy on The Daily Show’s progressive agenda and the audience was totally along for the ride. I could hardly believe my eyes, and yet it made perfect sense at the same time. Who can argue that it is necessary to deny people water? Who can argue against equal rights? The answer is increasingly no one, and if The Daily Show’s audience is any indication, the next generation will be leading this fight in a much different direction."

Former Marine Resigns from State Department to protest Afghan occupation

First US Official Resigns Over Afghan War; Says "It's Not Worth The Fight" | Crooks and Liars

I'm so glad someone who has been there has finally said it:

(I)n a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, (former Marine Corps Captain Matthew) Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

The reaction to Hoh's letter was immediate. Senior U.S. officials, concerned that they would lose an outstanding officer and perhaps gain a prominent critic, appealed to him to stay.

U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry brought him to Kabul and offered him a job on his senior embassy staff. Hoh declined. From there, he was flown home for a face-to-face meeting with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer," Holbrooke said in an interview. "We all thought that given how serious his letter was, how much commitment there was, and his prior track record, we should pay close attention to him."

While he did not share Hoh's view that the war "wasn't worth the fight," Holbrooke said, "I agreed with much of his analysis." He asked Hoh to join his team in Washington, saying that "if he really wanted to affect policy and help reduce the cost of the war on lives and treasure," why not be "inside the building, rather than outside, where you can get a lot of attention but you won't have the same political impact?"

Hoh is quick to say he's not some hippie peace-nik. Sigh. Why does he make that sound like a bad thing? But Hoh does feel that our presence does nothing but escalate violence and turmoil with the Afghans.

(M)any Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there -- a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.

As the White House deliberates over whether to deploy more troops, Hoh said he decided to speak out publicly because "I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, 'Listen, I don't think this is right.' "

"I realize what I'm getting into . . . what people are going to say about me," he said. "I never thought I would be doing this."

The New Atlanticist, a foreign policy blog, looks at it from a different POV: While Obama Dithers...

Now, as it happens, I think Hoh's analysis of the situation is spot-on:

Hoh's doubts increased with Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election, marked by low turnout and widespread fraud. He concluded, he said in his resignation letter, that the war "has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that composes and supports the Pashtun insurgency."

With "multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups," he wrote, the insurgency "is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and Nato presence in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified."

American families, he said at the end of the letter, "must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can be made any more.

While I don't appreciate the adoption of Cheney's framing--Obama isn't dithering, he's considering carefully his options--James Joyner has a point. Obama pushed Afghanistan as the "good war" and the reverberations of Hoh's resignation do appear to have leadership scrambling.

The US Doing Diplomacy instead of War? Here are some details

Secret Talks Progress on Illegal Iranian Nuclear Plant - TIME: "The backroom talks began in June, when Iranian officials told the International Atomic Energy Agency their country was running out of fuel for an aging research reactor built for the Shah in 1967 by American technicians. Iran sought the IAEA's help in buying more of the specially manufactured plates of enriched uranium used in the reactor to produce isotopes for cancer treatment, X-rays and insecticides. The IAEA, in turn, discussed the request with the U.S. (See pictures of Iran's presidential election and its turbulent aftermath.)

'We very quickly saw an opening here,' says a senior Administration official involved in the multiparty negotiations that ensued, speaking on condition of anonymity. The U.S. realized it could arrange for the manufacture of the specialized plates from an unorthodox source: the stash of low-enriched uranium Iran has produced in violation of U.N. Security Council demands at its massive Natanz uranium-enrichment plant over the past several years. The U.S., Israel and others had estimated that the Iranian stockpile was enough — if Iran kicked out inspectors and repurposed its enrichment facilities to enrich uranium to weapons grade — to produce material for a single atom bomb. So, the idea that Iran might agree to send most of it abroad to be turned into harmless plates for the research reactor"

What followed was a careful set of high-level negotiations between Iran, the IAEA, Russia, France and the U.S. to iron out details. In mid-September, Obama called the head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei to inform him that the U.S. was willing to do the deal. ElBaradei then contacted the Iranian representative at the IAEA, who said he would have to check with his government, the senior Administration official says. Eventually the Iranians contacted ElBaradei to signal a willingness to deal.

The Americans wanted to make sure the Iranians weren't going to pull a fast one and persuade the Russians to get the material for the research-reactor fuel from a source other than Iran's own stockpile. When President Obama met with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in New York City at the U.N. General Assembly in late September, he pressed the Russian to "confirm at the level of the President that this whole deal hinged on it being Iran providing the fuel," says the senior Administration official. The official says Medvedev agreed.

Obama then had a further phone conversation with ElBaradei late in September to confirm the details of the deal, which was finally announced at the Oct. 1 Geneva talks between Iran and the key Western powers, Russia and China. At those talks, U.S. negotiator, William Burns, had a one-on-one conversation with his Iranian counterpart to confirm the amount of uranium involved in the deal, and they agreed to the Oct. 19 meeting to determine details of the transfer.

Despite the top-level diplomatic work, U.S. officials were not particularly optimistic ahead of Monday's meeting in Vienna. After years of failed talks they were prepared for stalling by Iran or a breakdown over details. Sunday's suicide bombing that killed some senior Revolutionary Guards officers, and which many in Tehran blame on a U.S. covert program to destabilize the regime through support for separatist groups, could cast a shadow over the nuclear talks. But both sides have reasons to seek progress: if the deal were to go forward, the U.S. would have succeeded in securing most of Iran's existing stockpile against weaponization. Iran, for its part, could see the deal as legitimizing their enrichment of uranium in violation of U.N. demands. In the best case, officials said, sealing details of the reactor agreement would raise a hope of further progress — which is more than there has been in some time.

A view of Afghanistan and Obama from across the pond

YouTube - George Galloway debates Afghanistan with Dr Williams,advisor to Obama

Army recruiting goals actually down from 07-08 - Standards lowered

The Army says it exceeded its 2009 recruiting goals. But the numbers are very fishy. - By Fred Kaplan - Slate Magazine: "The Pentagon boasted this week that the U.S. armed forces have exceeded their recruitment goals for this year. Some officials attributed the success to high unemployment in the civilian job market, others to a spurt in civic-mindedness.

Whatever the theory, many reporters assumed the numbers mean that more young men and women are joining the military."

In fact, however, fewer people joined the Army this year than last year. The Army exceeded its recruitment goals not because recruitment went up but rather because recruitment goals were lowered.

The Army is the service that has been having the hardest time finding new recruits in recent years, in part because it has borne the heaviest burden—and suffered by far the most casualties—in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

According to the Pentagon's report, the Army's goal for fiscal year 2009 was to sign 65,000 new recruits. It actually signed 70,045—amounting to 8 percent more than the target.

But the picture is less bright than it seems. Though the Pentagon's report doesn't mention this fact, in each of the previous two years, the Army's recruitment goal was 80,000—much higher than this year's. The Army met those targets, but only by drastically lowering its standards—accepting more applicants who'd dropped out of high school or flunked the military's aptitude test.

Foreign Policy And Health Care: a Poet's Perspective

Foreign Policy In Focus | Poem, 'Dear Legislators'

Dear legislators in Capitol City, sweating in stone buildings this Session,
searching for cash and coins for clinics and coronary bypass machines,
for bandages and bedpans, searching inside books and briefs and file
cabinets. Surely you've looked everywhere, but what do I know? I'm just
a poet with my papers and pens, just a professor with my satchel and silly
books, just a former nurse from Canada with my starched cap and soft-soled
shoes. Have you checked the bills coming in for aircraft carriers and chemicals
for our bases in Colombia and Cuba, for gas masks and guns for our soldiers
in Greece, Kyrgyzstan, and Paraguay, for tanks and tracer bullets in Thailand,
and São Tomé e Principe? Have you asked why we're still buying barbed wire
and bayonets for our battalions in Bahrain and Britain? Or claymore mines
and missiles for our military in the Marianas and the United Arab Emirates?
What about the cost of nuclear intelligence for our navy in Norway and the
Netherlands? Or artillery for our armed forces in Egypt, Ecuador and Ethiopia,
in Japan, Djibouti, and Jordan, in Panama and in Puerto Rico, Spain and Saudi
Arabia, in Poland, Liberia and Italy? Can we talk about foreclosing the bases?
Funding defibrillators instead for families in Florida and Delaware. Buying syringes
and scalpels and stethoscopes for clinic staff in South Dakota and Colorado.
Pacemakers for elders with arrhythmia in Alabama and Alaska. Bicycles
and jogging institutes for Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa. Treadmill machines
and touring nutritionists for Utah, Texas, and Kentucky. But what do I know,
I'm just a poet with my papers and pens, just a person wondering why we're
buying bullets with our billions instead of seeking care for our millions


Note: "The United States spends approximately $250 billion annually to maintain troops, equipment, fleets and bases overseas…865 bases operate outside the United States." — Anita Dancs, "Cost of Global U.S. Military Presence," Foreign Policy in Focus, Washington, D.C. July 3, 2009.

Frances Payne Adler is the author of 5 books of poetry, including 'The Making of a Matriot' (Red Hen Press, 2003), and is one of three co-editors of 'Fire and Ink: An Anthology of Social Action Writing' (University of Arizona Press, 2009). Her collaborative poetry-photography books and exhibitions about access to health care have shown in state capitol buildings and in the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C. Adler is a professor of creative writing at California State University Monterey Bay, and founder of their Creative Writing and Social Action Program. In her earlier years, Adler was an emergency room nurse in Montreal.

US Health Care Costs a 9/11 Every Three & a Half Weeks

The Seminal » A 9/11 Every Three and a Half Weeks


The latest peer-reviewed estimate of deaths due to to lack of health insurance is 45,000 per year.

That’s one 9/11 every three and a half weeks.

And that’s almost certainly an underestimate, since it doesn’t include deaths precipitated by underinsurance.

In the days and weeks following 9/11 did any legislator insist that we bring the perpetrators of that slaughter to justice, but only if we do it in a deficit-neutral fashion?

Any?

And Al Qaeda was only emulating three and a half weeks’ worth of our corrupt health care system.

I don’t want to hear another word about the impact of health care reform on the federal budget. We have enough models on how rational nations work this out. (I won’t say more, because that’ll bring me back to the public option’s inadequacies….)

Enough about who’s going to pay for it. One 9/11’s worth of human souls pay for the lack of it every three and a half weeks.

"Healthcare Fighting (Kung Fu Mix)" - Democratic Underground

"Healthcare Fighting (Kung Fu Mix)" - Democratic Underground
Need A break from the health care battle? Here it is! And it makes fun of both sides so I guess you could call it bipartisan. ;-)

Orlando protest targeting defense contractors October 17th

Peace protesters targeting defense contractors -- OrlandoSentinel.com: "EAST ORANGE -- - Peace activists from throughout the state plan to descend on East Orange in mid-October for rallies against defense contractors that have branches at the Central Florida Research Park near the University of Central Florida.

A coalition of more than 30 groups under the Florida Peace Congress will hold two days of protest against four companies that they call 'corporate war profiteers' because of their multibillion-dollar defense contracts with the U.S. government, said Jeff Nall, an organizer from Palm Beach. The companies are Boeing, Northrup Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon.

The first rally, mostly a warm-up for local peace advocates, will take place Oct. 14, starting at 12 p.m. in front of the UCF Student Union. The statewide rally will be Oct. 17, starting at 12 p.m. at the southeast corner of Alafaya Boulevard and University Boulevard."

For Military Spending per capita only Israel exceeds US

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Of course a lot of their spending is actually our tax dollars