Wednesday, May 27, 2015

A disavowal of racism and of those advocating racist solutions

A disavowal of racism and of those advocating racist solutions

Posted in Etc. with tags , , on September 23, 2008 by The 800 Pound Gorilla

This website and its associated websites categorically reject any and all forms of racism. Further, this website and associated sites will consider those advocating racism or racist policies as agents provocateurs working in the interest of criminal Zionism. It’s well-known by now that a strategy of divide-and-conquer has been one of the criminal network’s chief, and perhaps most effective, means of maintaining control.By creating artificial divisions — such as Christian vs. Muslim (the neo-conservative “Clash of Civilizations” fantasy) and black vs. white, especially in the US — the criminals have historically eluded, and continue to elude, punishment for their crimes.
This website and associated websites, therefore, categorically reject racism and are not opposed to any particular group of people on the basis of race.
Rather, this site stands against the criminal ideology and practices of world Zionism and its advocates, whatever their background.
To borrow a phrase from Daryl Bradford Smith [LINK], whose general approach to the issue this site endorses: “We don’t oppose any particular ethnic community, we oppose criminals.”
Anyone promoting racism or racist policies, therefore, or seen to be inciting violence against particular ethnic groups, will be viewed by this and associate websites as agents provocateurs actively working to destroy the cohesion of the growing anti-Zionist movement by attempting to turn natural allies against one another.
It’s a time-worn tactic, but one against which we must remain vigilant.
A disavowal of racism and of those advocating racist solutions
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Joe Kennedy on WWII

Posted in Etc. with tags , , , , , , on September 17, 2008 by The 800 Pound Gorilla

Joseph “Joe” Patrick Kennedy, Sr. was a prominent United States businessman and political figure, the father of President John F. Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also referred to as John F and Senators Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis “Bobby” Kennedy , also called “RFK”, was one of two younger brothers of President and senior U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy.got out of the market in 1928, the year before the Crash, locking in multi-million dollar profits. Kennedy said that he expected the “Jew media” in the United States to become a problem, that “Jewish pundits in New York and Los Angeles” were already making noises contrived to “set a match to the fuse of the world.”
“It is true that I have a low opinion of some Jews in public office and in private life. That does not mean that I… believe they should be wiped off the face of the earth… Jews who take an unfair advantage of the fact that theirs is a persecuted race do not help much… Publicizing unjust attacks upon the Jews may help to cure the injustice, but continually publicizing the whole problem only serves to keep it alive in the public mind.”
The Kennedy family is a prominent Irish-American family in American politics. Joseph Patrick Kennedy was born in Boston Boston, Massachusetts
Boston is the capital of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States, the son of Patrick J. Kennedy, a successful businessman and Irish Catholic community leader. Joseph’s grandparents came to America in the mid 1840’s to flee the Irish famine Irish Potato Famine (1845–1849)
During The Great Famine or the Great Hunger , known more commonly outside of Ireland as the Irish potato famine, Kennedy was born into a highly sectarian environment where Irish Catholics were the victims of native WASP Wasp
At the time, there were laws and businesses banning Irish-Americans from many jobs in Boston–aka the NINA signs. Many Boston Irish were active in the Democratic Party History of the United States Democratic Party
The History of the Democratic Party is an account of a continuously supported political party including Patrick and numerous relatives. Prohibition is any of several periods during which the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and, Kennedy’s company Somerset Importers became the exclusive American agent for Gordon’s Dry Gin and Dewar’s Scotch. Anticipating the end of Prohibition he assembled a large inventory of stock that he sold for a profit of millions of dollars when
Prohibition is any of several periods during which the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and was repealed in 1933. He invested this money in residential and commercial real estate, The Merchandise Mart is one of the largest commercial buildings in the world, located in Chicago, Illinois… Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois , as well as the third-most populous. and Hialeah Race Track in Hialeah, Florida.
Kennedy made a huge amount from reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood studios. Some speculated he enjoyed the industry because of the attractive women involved in it. Film production in the U.S. was a lot more decentralized than it is today, with many different movie studios producing film product. One small studio was FBO, the Film Booking Office of America, which specialized in Westerns produced cheaply. Its owner was in financial trouble and asked Kennedy to help find a new owner. Kennedy liked the business so much he formed his own group of investors to buy it for $1.5 million.
He then moved to Hollywood in March 1926 to focus on running the studio. Movie studios were then permitted to own exhibition companies and often found it necessary to get their films on the big screen. With that in mind, in a hostile buyout he acquired the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theaters Corporation which had more than seven hundred vaudeville Vaudeville is a style of multi-act theatre which flourished in North America from the 1880s and movie theaters across the United States . He later acquired another production studio Pathe Exchange, owned by the French giant, Pathé Pathé.
In October 1928, he formally merged his film companies FBO and KAO to form Radio-Keith-Orpheum RKO Pictures.
RKO Pictures is an American film production company, one of the so-called Big Five and made a large amount of money in the process. Then, keen to buy the Pantages Theater chain which had sixty-three strong-performing theaters, Kennedy made an offer of $8 million. It was declined. Joe then stopped distributing his movies to Pantages. Still, Alexander Pantages was an American vaudeville and early motion picture producer declined to sell. However, when Pantages was later charged and tried for rape, his reputation took a battering and he accepted Kennedy’s revised offer of $3.5 million. It is estimated that Kennedy made over $5 million from his investments in Hollywood. During his affair with film star Gloria Swanson who was an American actress, who was prolific during the era of the silent film , but had arranged the financing for her films The Love of Sunya and the ill-fated Queen Kelly.
Joseph’s first active involvement in a national political campaign occurred during Franklin D. Roosevelt. Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as the 32nd President of the United States and was elected to four’s bid for the Presidency. He donated, loaned, and raised a substantial amount of money for FDR’s presidential campaign. President Roosevelt rewarded him, with an appointment as the inaugural Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission . Kennedy had hoped for a Cabinet post, such as Treasury.
Kennedy’s reforming work as SEC Chairman was widely praised on all sides, as investors realized the SEC was protecting their interests. His knowledge of the financial markets equipped him to identify areas requiring the attention of regulators. One of the crucial reforms was the requirement for companies to regularly file financial statements with the SEC which broke what some saw as an information monopoly maintained by the Morgan banking family. Kennedy left the SEC in 1935 to take over the Maritime Commission, which built on his wartime experience in running a major shipyard. Relationship with radio priest Charles Coughlin
Father Charles Edward Coughlin was a Canadian -born Roman Catholic priest at Royal Oak, Michigan was an Irish American Irish American priest from Detroit, who became perhaps the most prominent Catholic spokesman on political and financial issues in the 1930s, with a radio audience that reached millions every week. A strong supporter of Roosevelt in 1932, Coughlin broke with the president in 1934 and became a bitter opponent in his weekly “Anti-Semitic” Show
The New Deal is the name given to the series of programs implemented between 1933-37 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, anti-capitalistic radio talks. Roosevelt sent Kennedy and other prominent Irish Catholics to try to moderate Coughlin, but they failed. . Coughlin swung his support to Huey Long Huey Pierce Long, Jr., was an American politician from the U.S. state
in 1935 and then to a third party in 1936. Kennedy strongly supported the New Deal and believed as early as 1933 that Coughlin was “becoming a very dangerous proposition” as an opponent of Roosevelt and “an out and out demagogue.” Kennedy worked with Roosevelt, Bishop Francis Spellman and Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli in a successful effort to get the Vatican to shut Coughlin down in 1936. Coughlin later returned to the air and in 1940 Kennedy battled against his influence among the Irish regarding isolationism. During the Spanish Civil War Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War, which lasted from July 17 , 1936 to April 1 , 1939 , was a conflict , Kennedy helped persuade Roosevelt to keep America out of the conflict, noting that the American Catholic community sympathized with the nationalist forces of Francisco Franco. Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Tedulo Franco y Bahamonde Salgado Pardo , abbreviated Francisco Franc against the left-wing in Spain.
Ambassador to Britain
In 1938, Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s . Kennedy’s Irish and Catholic status did not bother the British; indeed he hugely enjoyed his leadership position in London society, which stood in stark contrast to his outsider status in Boston. His daughter Kathleen married the heir to the Duke of Devonshire Edward Cavendish, Edward William Spencer Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire, KG , known as Marqu, the head of one of England’s grandest aristocratic families. Kennedy rejected the warnings of Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG , OM , CH that compromise with Nazi Germany was impossible; instead he supported Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement Appeasement Appeasement is a policy of accepting the imposed conditions of an aggressor in lieu of armed resistance in order to stave off a second world war that would be a more horrible “armageddon” than the first. As Roosevelt shifted away from neutrality toward a more aggressive anti-German policy, Kennedy had to resign in November 1940. Regardless, Kennedy was active in rallying Irish and Catholic Democrats to vote for Roosevelt’s reelection.
Kennedy was a strong supporter of offering aid to Britain and testified before Congress in January 1941, supporting the Roosevelt administration’s Lend Lease Lend-Lease was the major United States program 1941-1945 which enabled the United States to sup proposal, and gave a well received radio address supporting the same legislation.
While his own ambitions for the White House seemed impossible to realize, he held out great hope for his eldest son Joseph Jr. Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. was the oldest of the nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and his wife to gain the presidency. However, Joe Jr. was killed undertaking a high-risk bombing raid over Germany. Kennedy then turned his attention to grooming the second son, John F. Kennedy
“Anti-Semitism”
Kennedy was a close friend with leading Jewish lawyer Felix Frankfurter Felix Frankfurter was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court , who helped Kennedy get his sons into the London School of Economics, where they worked with Harold Laski, a leading Jewish intellectual and prominent Socialist. While holding positive attitudes towards individual Jews, Kennedy’s views of the Jews as a people were, by his own admission, overwhelmingly negative.
According to Harvey Klemmer, who served as one of Kennedy’s embassy aides, Kennedy habitually referred to Jews as “kikes or sheenies.” Kennedy allegedly told Klemmer that “[some] individual Jews are all right, Harvey, but as a race they stink. They spoil everything they touch.” When Klemmer returned from a trip to Germany and reported the pattern of vandalism and assault on Jews by Nazis, Kennedy responded “well, they brought it on themselves.”
On June 13, 1938, Kennedy met with Herbert von Dirksen, the German ambassador in London, who reported to Berlin that Kennedy had told him that “it was not so much the fact that we want to get rid of the Jews that was so harmful to us, but rather the loud clamor with which we accompanied this purpose. [Kennedy] himself fully understood our Jewish policy.” Kennedy’s main concern with such violent acts against German Jews as Kristallnacht Kristallnacht was a pogrom against Jew s throughout Germany and parts of Austria on November was that they generated bad publicity in the West for the Nazi regime, a concern he communicated in a letter to Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., known as “Lucky Lindy” and “The Lone Eagle”, was an American read his speech Kennedy had a close friendship with Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess Astor, CH , , was the wife of Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor , who shared his distrust of the Jews; the correspondence between them is replete with anti-Semitic tropes. As Edward Renehan notes:
As fiercely anti-Communist as they were “anti-Semitic”, Kennedy and Astor looked upon Adolf Hitler as a welcome solution to both of these “world problems” . No member of the so-called “Cliveden Set” seemed much concerned with the dilemma faced by Jews under the Reich. Astor wrote Kennedy that Hitler would have to do more than just “give a rough time” to “the killers of Christ” before she’d be in favor of launching “Armageddon to save them. The wheel of history swings round as the Lord would have it. Who are we to stand in the way of the future?” Kennedy replied that he expected the “Jew media” in the United States to become a problem, that “Jewish pundits in New York and Los Angeles” were already making noises contrived to “set a match to the fuse of the world.”
By August 1940, Kennedy worried that a third term for Roosevelt meant war; as Leamer reports, “Joe believed that Roosevelt, Churchill, the Jews and their allies would manipulate America into approaching Armageddon.”, however, Kennedy remained “more wary of” prominent American Jews such as Felix Frankfurter an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court than he was of Hitler. Kennedy told reporter Joe Dinneen:
It is true that I have a low opinion of some Jews in public office and in private life. That does not mean that I… believe they should be wiped off the face of the earth… Jews who take an unfair advantage of the fact that theirs is a persecuted race do not help much… Publicizing unjust attacks upon the Jews may help to cure the injustice, but continually publicizing the whole problem only serves to keep it alive in the public mind.
When Dinneen wrote The Kennedy Family, he was pressured to remove these quotations from the book by John F. Kennedy himself. Dineen complied. Joe McCarthy close to Joe Kennedy Joseph McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy was a Republican Senator , after 1950, was the nation’s most prominent Irish-American Irish American along with the Kennedy family
Even before he became famous, McCarthy became close friends with Kennedy, who contributed thousands of dollars to McCarthy, and became one of his major supporters. Kennedy often brought him to Hyannis Port as a weekend house guest in the late 1940s. McCarthy at one point dated Patricia Kennedy. In the Senate race of 1952, Joseph apparently worked a deal so that McCarthy, a Republican, would not make campaign speeches for the GOP ticket in Massachusetts. In return, Congressman John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy , running for the Senate seat, would not give any anti-McCarthy speeches that his liberal supporters wanted to hear. In 1953 at Joe’s urging McCarthy hired Robert Kennedy Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis “Bobby” Kennedy , also called “RFK”, was one of two younger brothers of President as a senior staff member. In 1954, when the Senate was threatening to condemn McCarthy, Senator John Kennedy faced a dilemma. “How could I demand that Joe McCarthy be censured for things he did when my own brother was on his staff?” asked JFK. By 1954, however, Robert Kennedy and McCarthy’s chief aide, Roy Cohn
Roy Marcus Cohn was an American lawyer who came to prominence during the investigations, had had a falling out and Robert no longer worked for McCarthy. John Kennedy had a speech drafted calling for the censure of McCarthy but he never delivered it. When the Senate voted to censure McCarthy on December 2, 1954, Senator Kennedy was in the hospital and never indicated then or later how he would vote.
Joe Kennedy was always an intensely controversial figure among liberal Democrats because of his business credentials, his Catholicism, his opposition to Roosevelt’s foreign policy, and his support for Joseph McCarthy. Therefore he operated in the background. He played a vital role in fundraising and in managing parts of the campaigns, such as the West Virginia primary of 1960. How much family money he spent is not yet known. While he stayed in the background his children engaged in intensive campaigning, with round after round of rallies, and coffee klatches. Joe supervised the spending and to some degree the overall campaign strategy, helped select advertising agencies, and was endlessly on the phone with local and state party leaders, newsmen and business leaders. He had made thousands of friends in his career, and called in his chips to help his sons. The family’s glamour thus was turned directly into political capital for the senatorial and presidential campaigns of John, Robert and Ted. Historians do not report that he had a major influence on the policy decisions made by his sons. In one crucial area, however, Ambassador Kennedy arranged a fateful meeting between the Military Vicar, Cardinal Spellman, Cardinal Cushing of Boston, and John F. Kennedy. The Cardinals felt that South Vietnam was predominately a Roman Catholic country , and that America could not allow Catholics to be over-run by the Communist North Vietnam, and they reportedly secured the young President Kennedy’s commitment to ensure that the Catholic South was secure. Soon thereafter the 2,000 “advisors” sent by Pres.Eisenhower jumped to 20,000 under President Kennedy, beginning a moral and military nightmare for America that many military experts had long warned against.
When John F. Kennedy was asked about the level of involvement and influence his father had held in his razor-thin presidential bid, JFK would joke that on the eve before the election, his father had asked him the exact number of votes he would need to win – there was no way he was paying “for a land-slide”.
Afterwards, Joseph Kennedy expanded the Kennedy Compound, which continues as a major center of family get-togethers. Stroke and death On December 19, 1961 suffered a major stroke, which very nearly killed him. he was left paralysed down the right side, confining him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, and he lost all power of speech. Despite being severely disabled from the stroke, Kennedy remained aware of the tragedies that befell his family until his own death. He died at the age of 81 on November 18 1969.
Joe Kennedy on WWII
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Aviator Lindbergh calls “war agitators” by name in 1941 speech

Posted in Etc. with tags , , on September 17, 2008 by The 800 Pound Gorilla

Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor allowed Roosevelt and his handlers to bring the US into World War II on the side of Britain and France, domestic opposition to involvement in the conflict was intense. One of the leading speakers against US intervention in Europe’s bloody war was Charles Lindbergh, better remembered today for making the first solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927.In a September 11, 1941 speech, given on behalf of the anti-interventionist America First Committee in Des Moines, Iowa, Lindbergh plainly identifies the “agitators,” who — with the use of intense propaganda — were assiduously pushing for US involvement in the conflict: “The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration,” he says. Of the second group in particular, Lindbergh goes on to note: “Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.”
Charles Lindbergh’s speech on “The War Agitators”
September 11, 1941
Des Moines, Iowa
It is now two years since this latest European war began. From that day in September, 1939, until the present moment, there has been an over-increasing effort to force the United States into the conflict.
That effort has been carried on by foreign interests, and by a small minority of our own people; but it has been so successful that, today, our country stands on the verge of war.
At this time, as the war is about to enter its third winter, it seems appropriate to review the circumstances that have led us to our present position. Why are we on the verge of war? Was it necessary for us to become so deeply involved? Who is responsible for changing our national policy from one of neutrality and independence to one of entanglement in European affairs?
Personally, I believe there is no better argument against our intervention than a study of the causes and developments of the present war. I have often said that if the true facts and issues were placed before the American people, there would be no danger of our involvement.
Here, I would like to point out to you a fundamental difference between the groups who advocate foreign war, and those who believe in an independent destiny for America.
If you will look back over the record, you will find that those of us who oppose intervention have constantly tried to clarify facts and issues; while the interventionists have tried to hide facts and confuse issues.
We ask you to read what we said last month, last year, and even before the war began. Our record is open and clear, and we are proud of it.
We have not led you on by subterfuge and propaganda. We have not resorted to steps short of anything, in order to take the American people where they did not want to go.
What we said before the elections, we say again and again, and again today. And we will not tell you tomorrow that it was just campaign oratory. Have you ever heard an interventionist, or a British agent, or a member of the administration in Washington ask you to go back and study a record of what they have said since the war started? Are their self-styled defenders of democracy willing to put the issue of war to a vote of our people? Do you find these crusaders for foreign freedom of speech, or the removal of censorship here in our own country?
The subterfuge and propaganda that exists in our country is obvious on every side. Tonight, I shall try to pierce through a portion of it, to the naked facts which lie beneath.
When this war started in Europe, it was clear that the American people were solidly opposed to entering it. Why shouldn’t we be? We had the best defensive position in the world; we had a tradition of independence from Europe; and the one time we did take part in a European war left European problems unsolved, and debts to America unpaid.
National polls showed that when England and France declared war on Germany, in 1939, less than 10 percent of our population favored a similar course for America. But there were various groups of people, here and abroad, whose interests and beliefs necessitated the involvement of the United States in the war. I shall point out some of these groups tonight, and outline their methods of procedure. In doing this, I must speak with the utmost frankness, for in order to counteract their efforts, we must know exactly who they are.
The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration.
Behind these groups, but of lesser importance, are a number of capitalists, Anglophiles, and intellectuals who believe that the future of mankind depends upon the domination of the British Empire. Add to these the Communistic groups who were opposed to intervention until a few weeks ago, and I believe I have named the major war agitators in this country.
I am speaking here only of war agitators, not of those sincere but misguided men and women who, confused by misinformation and frightened by propaganda, follow the lead of the war agitators.
As I have said, these war agitators comprise only a small minority of our people; but they control a tremendous influence. Against the determination of the American people to stay out of war, they have marshaled the power of their propaganda, their money, their patronage.
Let us consider these groups, one at a time.
First, the British: It is obvious and perfectly understandable that Great Britain wants the United States in the war on her side. England is now in a desperate position. Her population is not large enough and her armies are not strong enough to invade the continent of Europe and win the war she declared against Germany.
Her geographical position is such that she cannot win the war by the use of aviation alone, regardless of how many planes we send her. Even if America entered the war, it is improbable that the Allied armies could invade Europe and overwhelm the Axis powers. But one thing is certain. If England can draw this country into the war, she can shift to our shoulders a large portion of the responsibility for waging it and for paying its cost.
As you all know, we were left with the debts of the last European war; and unless we are more cautious in the future than we have been in the past, we will be left with the debts of the present case. If it were not for her hope that she can make us responsible for the war financially, as well as militarily, I believe England would have negotiated a peace in Europe many months ago, and be better off for doing so.
England has devoted, and will continue to devote every effort to get us into the war. We know that she spent huge sums of money in this country during the last war in order to involve us. Englishmen have written books about the cleverness of its use.
We know that England is spending great sums of money for propaganda in America during the present war. If we were Englishmen, we would do the same. But our interest is first in America; and as Americans, it is essential for us to realize the effort that British interests are making to draw us into their war.
The second major group I mentioned is the Jewish.
It is not difficult to understand why Jewish people desire the overthrow of Nazi Germany. The persecution they suffered in Germany would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any race.
No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can look on their pro-war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy both for us and for them. Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for they will be among the first to feel its consequences.
Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastations. A few far-sighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention. But the majority still do not.
Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.
I am not attacking either the Jewish or the British people. Both races, I admire. But I am saying that the leaders of both the British and the Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war.
We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we also must look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction.
The Roosevelt administration is the third powerful group which has been carrying this country toward war. Its members have used the war emergency to obtain a third presidential term for the first time in American history. They have used the war to add unlimited billions to a debt which was already the highest we have ever known. And they have just used the war to justify the restriction of congressional power, and the assumption of dictatorial procedures on the part of the president and his appointees.
The power of the Roosevelt administration depends upon the maintenance of a wartime emergency. The prestige of the Roosevelt administration depends upon the success of Great Britain to whom the president attached his political future at a time when most people thought that England and France would easily win the war. The danger of the Roosevelt administration lies in its subterfuge. While its members have promised us peace, they have led us to war heedless of the platform upon which they were elected.
In selecting these three groups as the major agitators for war, I have included only those whose support is essential to the war party. If any one of these groups — the British, the Jewish, or the administration — stops agitating for war, I believe there will be little danger of our involvement.
I do not believe that any two of them are powerful enough to carry this country to war without the support of the third. And to these three, as I have said, all other war groups are of secondary importance.
When hostilities commenced in Europe, in 1939, it was realized by these groups that the American people had no intention of entering the war. They knew it would be worse than useless to ask us for a declaration of war at that time. But they believed that this country could be entered into the war in very much the same way we were entered into the last one.
They planned: first, to prepare the United States for foreign war under the guise of American defense; second, to involve us in the war, step by step, without our realization; third, to create a series of incidents which would force us into the actual conflict. These plans were of course, to be covered and assisted by the full power of their propaganda.
Our theaters soon became filled with plays portraying the glory of war. Newsreels lost all semblance of objectivity. Newspapers and magazines began to lose advertising if they carried anti-war articles. A smear campaign was instituted against individuals who opposed intervention. The terms “fifth columnist,” “traitor,” “Nazi,” “anti-Semitic” were thrown ceaselessly at any one who dared to suggest that it was not to the best interests of the United States to enter the war. Men lost their jobs if they were frankly anti-war. Many others dared no longer speak.
Before long, lecture halls that were open to the advocates of war were closed to speakers who opposed it. A fear campaign was inaugurated. We were told that aviation, which has held the British fleet off the continent of Europe, made America more vulnerable than ever before to invasion. Propaganda was in full swing.
There was no difficulty in obtaining billions of dollars for arms under the guise of defending America. Our people stood united on a program of defense. Congress passed appropriation after appropriation for guns and planes and battleships, with the approval of the overwhelming majority of our citizens. That a large portion of these appropriations was to be used to build arms for Europe, we did not learn until later. That was another step.
To use a specific example; in 1939, we were told that we should increase our air corps to a total of 5,000 planes. Congress passed the necessary legislation. A few months later, the administration told us that the United States should have at least 50,000 planes for our national safety. But almost as fast as fighting planes were turned out from our factories, they were sent abroad, although our own air corps was in the utmost need of new equipment; so that today, two years after the start of war, the American army has a few hundred thoroughly modern bombers and fighters — less in fact, than Germany is able to produce in a single month.
Ever since its inception, our arms program has been laid out for the purpose of carrying on the war in Europe, far more than for the purpose of building an adequate defense for America.
Now at the same time we were being prepared for a foreign war, it was necessary, as I have said, to involve us in the war. This was accomplished under that now famous phrase “steps short of war.”
England and France would win if the United States would only repeal its arms embargo and sell munitions for cash, we were told. And then the refrain began, a refrain that marked every step we took toward war for many months — “the best way to defend America and keep out of war,” we were told, was “by aiding the Allies.”
First, we agreed to sell arms to Europe; next, we agreed to loan arms to Europe; then we agreed to patrol the ocean for Europe; then we occupied a European island in the war zone. Now, we have reached the verge of war.
The war groups have succeeded in the first two of their three major steps into war. The greatest armament program in our history is under way.
We have become involved in the war from practically every standpoint except actual shooting. Only the creation of sufficient “incidents” yet remains; and you see the first of these already taking place, according to plan — a plan that was never laid before the American people for their approval.
Men and women of Iowa; only one thing holds this country from war today. That is the rising opposition of the American people. Our system of democracy and representative government is on test today as it has never been before. We are on the verge of a war in which the only victor would be chaos and prostration.
We are on the verge of a war for which we are still unprepared, and for which no one has offered a feasible plan for victory — a war which cannot be won without sending our soldiers across the ocean to force a landing on a hostile coast against armies stronger than our own.
We are on the verge of war, but it is not yet too late to stay out. It is not too late to show that no amount of money, or propaganda, or patronage can force a free and independent people into war against its will. It is not yet too late to retrieve and to maintain the independent American destiny that our forefathers established in this new world.
The entire future rests upon our shoulders. It depends upon our action, our courage, and our intelligence. If you oppose our intervention in the war, now is the time to make your voice heard.
Help us to organize these meetings; and write to your representatives in Washington. I tell you that the last stronghold of democracy and representative government in this country is in our house of representatives and our senate.
There, we can still make our will known. And if we, the American people, do that, independence and freedom will continue to live among us, and there will be no foreign war.
Download Lindbergh’s original speech in mp3 format CLICK HERE
Aviator Lindbergh calls “war agitators” by name in 1941 speech
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My Personal Experience with the Israeli occupation

Posted in Etc. on September 11, 2008 by The 800 Pound Gorilla


Palestinians for Peace and Democracy By Khalid Amayreh
Khalid Amayreh continues to work as a journalist. He lives with his family in the Occupied Palestinian town of Dura with his wife and family. He may be contacted at amayreh@p-ol.com Reprinted with permission of the author.
When Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, I was nine years old. This means that for the past 34 years, I have been “living” in the “Israeli era,” or, to put more accurately, under Israel’s dehumanizing military occupation.
Three years before I was born, three of my four paternal uncles, Hussein 27, Mahmoud 25, and Yosef 23, were killed by Israeli soldiers. They were simple shepherds who were grazing their herds near the village of Al-burj near the so-called armistice line, 20 km south West of the West Bank town of Hebron. With my three uncles, three other relatives, including a woman, were also shot dead.
In fact, the Israelis not only killed three men of my family but also confiscated the three hundred sheep upon which my family’s livelihood depended to a large extent. This calamity condemned us to a life of misery and poverty for many years to come. Thus, my family had to live in a cave for 22 years. The misery, the suffering, the abject-poverty were conspicuous in all aspects of our life. Until today, the Israeli government neither expressed guilt for the crime, nor compensated us for our stolen property. Of course, our loss didn’t stop at three uncles killed on one day and 300 sheep arrogated by the Israeli government. Much more was taken away from us six years earlier, in 1948, our land in al-Za’ak, Um-Hartain, our home, everything.
Under Jordan rule, the most important thing the Jordanian authorities cared about was loyalty to the king and his family. Connections with the King and his Mukhabarat (or intelligence apparatus) meant that you’ve got done. Shouting “Ya’ish Jalalat al Malik” (long live the king), would give you an automatic certificate of good conduct. No wonder, it was a corrupt regime based on sycophancy, favoritism, nepotism, graft and corruption. The King was the law, and the law didn’t exist.
The Jordanian regime never really made genuine efforts or preparations to repulse a possible Israeli onslaught. The most immediate priority for the Jordanian regime seemed to make sure that Palestinians didn’t possess firearms. A Palestinian would get a six-month prison sentence if a bullet cartridge were found in his possession. Like the Israelis would do later, the Jordanians enlisted the “makhatir” (clan notables) to inform on every gesture of opposition or dissatisfaction with the King’s rule within their respective areas. This cronyism and police state structure gave rise to more corruption.
Those free-minded Palestinians who insisted on voicing their conscience were dumped into the notorious El-Jafer prison in eastern Jordan where they were often tortured to death. I know of at least one person in my town Dura who was tortured to death for his political views.
So, we had to bear two burdens, despotism and repression from the Jordanian regime and frequent, across-border attacks from Israel. I can’t forget Israeli Mirages flying over my head in 1966 as they dropped their Napalm bombs on civilians in the village of El-Sammou.
In 1967, I was ten years old. I can remember when we were told to raise the white flags when the Israeli army surrounded our village, Kharsa, west of Hebron. We were told we would be shot and killed if we didn’t raise the white flag aloft. The Jordanian soldiers left in disgrace and headed eastward, some put on traditional women clothes to disguise themselves.
At the beginning, the Israelis launched what one may call a charm-campaign. Some people prematurely began making positive remarks about the Israelis such as “Oh, they are better than the Jordanians, they are civilized!” But that feeling was premature and didn’t last long, as the occupation army began adopting stringent measures against us.
Soon enough, the Israelis began confiscating the land and building settlements. They also would demolish homes as a reprisal for guerilla attacks. In our culture, if you want to express extreme ill will toward somebody, you say “Yikhrib Beitak” may your home be destroyed.
The Israelis sought to take full advantage of this weak link in our social psychology. They demolished thousands of houses. The demolition has never ceased. Home demolition would leave deep psychological scars in peoples memories and hearts. Children would return from school only to see their homes being destroyed by bulldozers driven by soldiers wearing helmets with the Star of David on them. That Star of David, which we are told is originally a religious symbol, symbolized hate and evil. Even today, I couldn’t imagine a more hateful sign.
Phobias, deep stress, neurosis, and depression are among the disorders children of demolished homes would suffer.
I personally witnessed several demolitions when I was 11. The operation would begin by declaring the village where the doomed house is located a closed military zone.
Then, all men from age 14 to age 70 are asked to assemble at the playground of the local school, with their heads bowed down. Very often the soldiers would shoot over peoples’ heads to terrorize them. Civility was always absent, and in these days, there was no Jazeera or CNN to cover Israel’s shameful acts, so they felt at liberty doing as they saw fit.
Then, the commanding officer would give the doomed family half an hour to get all their belongings out. (These days they don’t give even five minutes).
The scene of young children comforting younger children is devastating. The distraught housewives would struggle to get her utensils and whatever meager appliances out lest they be crushed. A child would hasten to get his favorite toy, or an enlarged picture of his late grandfather before it is too late. Then the commanding officer would give the go ahead and the house would become rubble.
Afterwards, the Red Cross would bring a tent, as a temporary shelter, or the tormented family would simply make an enclosure and sleep under the trees. These were indelible images of misery, an ugly testimony to Israel’s Nazi-like savagery.
Born into a very poor family, I started working in Beir Shiva when I was fourteen as a construction worker and then assistant plasterer (Maggish). I was able to learn Hebrew as well as the Moroccan dialect spoken by many Jews who had migrated from North Africa. Like Palestinians, most Moroccan Jews worked in the construction sector. Some were street sweepers as well.
On some occasions, the people I worked for would not give me my wages. I worked for such famous construction company as Rasco, Solel Bonei, Hevrat Ovdeim. I still retain my old Israeli work card.
We were continually humiliated at Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks at the A’rad intersections on the way to Beir Shiva. A Jewish officer would beat one of us savagely without a convincing reason. I made many Jewish friends then, but the psychological barrier remained intact. I did intermix with some Tunisian and Moroccan Jews in Arad, Beir Shiva and Dimona.
In 1974, I took part in anti-occupation demonstration in Dura (then I was an 11th grade high school student). The soldiers cornered me in one of the narrow streets of the small town, and beat me savagely on the head with the butts of their rifles. I was nearly killed. I hated them, as I never posed a threat to their lives. They displayed no humanity and I was only shouting “Falastin Arabiyya” “Palestine is Arab.”
In 1975, after I passed the high school diploma exam, I went back to the construction sites in Beir Shiva. My family was too poor to send me to college. For sometime, the construction site in Beir sheva was my college. There I worked for a contractor named Shimon, a Tunisian Jew. It was hard and very hot, but I did manage to make enough money to travel to Amman. There I was able to get a student visa from the US embassy.
In July 1976, I traveled to the US with only 200 US dollars in my pocket. There I studied at Seminole and Oscar Rose Junior College in Oklahoma, then on to the University of Oklahoma in Norman, where I obtained a BA in journalism. Then in 1982, I obtained a Master degree from the University of Southern Illinois in Carbondale. I really wanted to be an engineer, but seeing how the Zionists were turning the black into white, the white into black, the big lie into a “truth” glorified by millions, I decided to switch to journalism.
I began writing letters to the editor, letters that would invite rabid and nervous replies from Zionist students on campus. Then the Zionists would make threats and use other intimidation tactics. A survivor of poverty, misery, and violence, I didn’t give a damn about their threats. I continued to cause them a lot of headache till my very last day in the US.
I was very active in the student campus movement in the States. I was ambivalent about the US. On the one hand I was impressed by the democracy and freedom of speech, on the other I was frustrated by the country’s wanton support of Israel’s oppressive policies. That feeling is still very much alive in me. Only the frustration and indignation have increased.
My letters to the editor can be found in such papers as “the Oklahoma Daily” and “the Daily Egyptians” under the name Khalid Suleiman. Occasionally, I used other names to elude the Zionists.
In 1983, I returned to the West Bank.
However, there is a little story that happened to me on my way back to Hebron. While traveling from Istanbul to Cairo, I thought I should travel directly to the Ben Gurion airport (without having to travel to Amman first as usual) and then by car to the West Bank. The El AL officer at the Cairo Airport assured me that everything would be ok, and I would be able to travel to Hebron very smoothly. It was not.
When we landed at Ben Gurion, I was immediately arrested. The Shin Beth interrogated me for five hours on my studies back in the states, my friends, the associations I was affiliated with, etc.
Then, I was told that the Israeli interior minister of that time, Yosef Burg (father of present Knesset speaker Abraham Burg) issued an order barring my entry into the country (my country). The order stated that I should be deported back to Egypt within 24 hours.
To make things worse, the police confiscated my papers, including the vital green “travel permit” issued by the Israeli military government and renewed by the Israeli consulate in Dallas. Without the permit, I would not be able to return to Hebron. Was it that Burg wanted to banish me from my country forever as had been done to millions of Palestinians?
It was nearly 7:00 pm, and the soldiers took me to the old British barracks where they told me to stay till the next morning. Three female soldiers stayed next to me, and they were making all sorts of jokes about me. They apparently didn’t know I knew Hebrew. I was given an orange; I didn’t eat it.
The next morning, airport officials forced me onto an Air Sinai plane and within two hours I was in Cairo again.
There, like a professional hijacker, I slipped into the Jordanian Royal Airways hall, convinced a Palestinian clerk to let me in. He did. On my way to Amman from Cairo, I was overwhelmed by anxiety. The Israeli authorities had stamped my Jordanian passport at the Ben Gurion airport, which meant that if the Jordanians found out that I had been in Tel Aviv, they most likely would throw me into jail for “dealing with the enemy.”
Luckily the Jordanian Passport official at Amman International airport was so busy that he didn’t examine the stamps on my passport. Good for me.
Then I faced the problem of my confiscated travel permit. I had to be smart, otherwise I would stay a refugee for the rest of my life.
So I went to the Main office of the Red Cross in Amman and told them that I had lost my Israeli travel permit in New York. (A good lie.) Well, the RC issued me a special VIP document in lieu of the one confiscated by the Israelis. Then I headed westward to the Allenby Bridge. There, luckily, I was admitted rather respectfully, apparently with the Israelis not aware of what had happened to me 48 hours earlier at Ben Gurion Airport.
In 1984, I began my journalistic career. Slowly, the Israeli would soon be getting fed up with my ideas and writings. Then the Mukhabarat (Shabak) would summon me once a month on the average. They would ask me to become a collaborator. I would tell them “do you think that somebody like me would become a collaborator?”
The way the Shabak (the Shin Beth) behaved convinced me that the Israeli state classified the Palestinians into two categories, collaborators and terrorists, nothing in between.
The place where the interrogation took place was crowded with Palestinians being tortured. I would hear people screaming. I personally know at least six people who died of torture in one year. One of them, Abdul Samad Herezat, was a personal friend of mine. He died as a result of the “the shaking technique.”
The Israelis used a variety of torture methods against Palestinian inmates, including hooding, savage beating, electric shocks, sleep deprivation, suffocation, and many other forms of physical and psychological pressure. Israeli doctors would help administer the torture. Sometimes, they would bring an inmate’s wife or sister and threaten to rape her in front of him. They would not rape the woman, but only threaten to do so in order to extract confessions from the inmate.
During the first intifada (1987-93), the Israeli army used really dirty tactics of collective punishment against the entire population. They would confine people inside their homes for 30 consecutive days, and if one ventured to get out, he would be shot dead.
It was like hibernation, and many ill people would succumb to their illnesses, being barred from leaving their homes. In Hebron, the curfew lasted for three months after the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre in 1994. They were like 90 days in hell.
I remember that in March 1994, Israeli president Ezer Weisman visited Hebron to offer condolences to the Palestinians. I was asked by my editor to cover the visit, which required that I apply for a travel permit at the Adorayem military camp in order to be able to travel the 10 kilometers to Hebron. I was stunned when the officer in command told me “sorry you can’t go.”
I retorted “but there are many journalists there.” Then he said, “Yes, they are Jewish journalists, and you are not a Jew.”
Earlier, the Israeli Shabak officer closed my AL-Qods press office in downtown Hebron and instructed all Arabic newspapers in the West Bank not to publish my reports. Indeed, my fax machine was confiscated and they would not give me a telephone line. Imagine I was only able to receive a telephone line in 1995 after the installment of the Palestinian Authority.
Today, I am confined to my hometown of Dura, near Hebron. I can’t travel outside, I can’t travel abroad, and I can’t even travel to the next village. The Israeli Shin Beth still controls our lives. Today a Shin Beth officer, Captain Eitan, called me and asked me about the PA latest crackdown on Hamas. His massage was “we are watching you.”
In short, the Israeli occupation is perpetual misery, torment, persecution, enslavement, and dehumanization. I feel frustrated because I can’t communicate to you the full extent of this enduring evil. It transcends reality.
My Personal Experience with the Israeli occupation
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