-<Denouncing Hugo Chavez + Anti-Israel Ballot Questions in Mass. >-

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Shanti Renfrew

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Oct 17, 2006, 11:54:56 AM10/17/06
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Denouncing Hugo Chavez

(And other sports of the rich,
infamous and just plain stupid)

10/06
 
Nancy Pelosi apparently has so much time on her hands,
and so few other issues to address, that she saw fit to unload
on Hugo Chavez following his appearance before the U.N. in New York.
 
Most readers are familiar by now with Chavez' provocative swipes
at "Devil" Bush and his comment that the titular head of U.S. empire
had left the place reeking of sulfur from his earlier appearance.
 
Is this run-of-the-mill Pablum of the Poor
that angered Democratic Party leaders so?
It could hardly have been the more substantive complaints
in Chavez' brief address:
 
The observation that the permanent veto of a few mega-powers
is an undemocratic throwback that taints the entire mission of the U.N.
(Gasp! What insolence!).
Or that the refusal to issue visas to several members of Chavez' staff
reeks of political payback thoroughly inappropriate
for the geographic host of an international organization (ingrate!).
 
No, denunciations are issued primarily because they are cheap and
easy political currency, a convenient distraction from events, issues
or problems the denouncer might otherwise be compelled to address.
 
Outrage is seductive; with the world burning around them,
the leaders of the system and the war machine
fed by both parties have nothing else to say and nothing to offer,
either to their own people or the citizens of the world.
 
Denunciations, repudiations and other useless gestures
have long been a substitute for real action
and a smokescreen to reassign proper targets of outrage.
 
When Nelson Mandela visited the US as the apartheid regime
was crumbling beneath his lifelong struggle, it was demanded of him
that he "repudiate" Mohamar Khadafi and Fidel Castro.
 
Pictures were circulated of the supposedly embarrassing hugs
that would make such "repudiation" necessary. Mandela refused,
of course, clearly seeing the absurdity of bowing to pressure
from the erstwhile funders of his oppressors to denounce those
who had supported his struggle for decades.
 
Black protesters of the Vietnam War, urged to patriotic duty
to kill communists and children halfway around the globe,
demurred with a similarly poignant retort:
 "No Viet Cong ever called me 'Nigger.'"
 
But there is a disturbing lesson in the pattern
of those our politicians love to hate,and especially
in our Toothless "Opposition's" Complicity
with the real forces colluding to turn back human progress
on an unprecedented scale. - (e.g. Magna Carta 1215)
 
There is something unconvincing about the party
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki being outraged by war crimes,
either by the current administration or around the world.
 
And ringing even hollower is the self-righteous drivel
from the lips of the heirs to one of the most nearly
total successful genocides in human history.
 
Three centuries of slavery, apartheid and racist terrorism
came to an end (sort of) under their watch.
Democrats love to absorb these "struggles" and "victories"
into their legacy, conveniently forgetting not only that racism
was the founding tenet of huge sections of their own party,
but that their desire to claim credit is ill-deserved.
 
Until the very sunset of official American apartheid,
even those most sympathetic in power resisted,
demurred, watered down, mitigated and counseled caution
and yet more patience among the oppressed.
Some heroes.
 
And now, despite all historical evidence that reliance on change
from the leadership down is an exercise in futility,
rank-and-file democrats are nearly giddy at the prospect
of gains to be made in the coming Biennial Farce next month.
Let's keep our eye on the ball:
 
Democratic leaders have more to say about Hugo Chavez
than the problems he is attempting to address.
Even in opposition they have almost nothing to say
about the hugest issues of the day:
 
The near total inability of our society to address
virtually any of our actual problems caused
by the bloated and counterproductive war machine.
 
So stuffed with our money that the machine hemorrhages billions
with barely anyone noticing, war waste dwarfs all other items
and all other budgets on the planet.
 
Government on all levels is completely paralyzed by this fear-induced
blackmail, even as it has more money than any other on earth.
 
A crisis, of course, met largely with silence from Bush's
"friends across the aisle."
Likewise with support for the ongoing slaughter and colonization
of Palestine, a festering injustice so obvious that even
the sleepy US public is starting to wake up to the atrocities.
 
A million cluster bombs lay scattered over southern Lebanon,
a millionlittle ambassadors for the truth
behind the US agenda in the region.
 
There is no timid or incremental solution
to problems that scream for radical change.
Yet the Democrats with few exceptions,
right beside their Republican collaborators are
 
so engorged on corporate money,
so beholden to interests diametrically opposed to our own,
so convinced of the rightness of their collusion with these forces,
so full of...well, Sh*t, to be perfectly honest...
    that they expect us to believe that
    something basic will change when they take power.
 
And if they have nothing to say now,
will they miraculously have more to say once the
Made in USA SKU labels on all those Cluster Bombs
trace directly back to their own purse strings?
Don't hold your breath.
======================
© 2006 Daniel Patrick Welch.
Reprint permission granted with credit and link to
http://danielpwelch.com. Writer, singer, linguist and activist
Daniel Patrick Welch lives and writes in Salem, Massachusetts,
with his wife, Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde.
Together they run The Greenhouse School
http://www.greenhouseschool.org.
Translations of articles are available in up to 20 languages.
Links to the website are appreciated at danielpwelch.com.
######################
 
=================================
 
Voters to face Anti-Israel Questions in Somerville

By Kristin Erekson -
Thursday October 12 2006
 
Somerville Mayor Joseph A. CurtatoneNov. 7 ballot
has questions on divestment and Right of Return
 
During the Nov. 7 elections, Somerville will become
the battleground for Palestinian rights. For the first time in three years,
the Somerville Divestment Project - a refugee rights grassroots
organization has succeeded in ushering two nonbinding questions
involving the divestment from Israel and the Palestinians’
Right of Return onto the state ballot in the 27th Middlesex District.
 
The city will be the only municipality in Massachusetts voting on
the issues that the group has set forth, according to Brian McNiff,
a spokesman for Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin.

But local political leaders are attempting to downplay
the significance of these anti-Israel queries in the polls,
arguing that the SDP’s resolutions will benefit no one.
 
“These ballot questions are so insignificant to me that
I am not going to even look at the results when they come across my desk,”
 said Somerville’s Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone,
who noted he is a strong supporter of Israel.
 
“The SDP will have no substantive effect or impact on changing
the face of our city. In fact, the overwhelming majority of people
believe that Somerville should not have a foreign or Middle East policy.”

Two hundred signatures had to be obtained by July 5 in order for the
SDP’s questions to be placed on the state ballot, a much easier
hurdle to clear compared to the roughly 4,000 signatures
required to get a referendum on the municipal ballot.
 
The SDP’s efforts to make the municipal ballot failed last fall
after a judge ruled that the petition forms it had used were invalid.

The nonbinding questions in this upcoming election
do not have any legal ramifications at this point.
Instead, they serve as the voters’ voices on these issues, which are
to be taken into consideration by State Rep. Denise Provost,
who oversees the 27th Middlesex District, McNiff said.
 
For this reason, the questions are on the state ballot
because they are aimed at a state representative, McNiff added.

The first question posed to voters by the SDP calls on Provost to issue a
statement on behalf of Mass. that would support the Right of Return
for all refugees, including Palestinian refugees, to their land of return.
 
The second question asks voters if they support government entities
in Massachusetts divesting from Israeli bonds
or in companies supplying military equipment to Israel.
Provost said that she would consult a private counsel to discuss
her obligation if the voters support the measures, noting that
she feels like she does not have enough authority
to make decisions on Israeli and Palestinian relations.

“I am not a member of Congress, and these are not
the kind of agenda items that would come up
in the Massachusetts House of Representatives,” she added.
 “The federal government has exclusive jurisdiction
  with the relations of foreign affairs.”

While many detractors may brush off the grassroots organization
as a small fringe group, SDP member Ron Francis
feels that they are a force to be reckoned with.
 
Francis said SDP is quickly gaining ground, especially since they put
 “two questions on the ballot and of course it represents a defeat
for the mayor’s office and other pro-apartheid supporters because now
 Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing Project will be discussed.

“We know the more the spotlight is shined on Israel’s
blatantly discriminatory policies, the more people will call
for an end to Israeli apartheid,” said Francis,
who is also a member of the organization’s board of directors.
 
“Our group believes in equal rights of all people and we are against
specific laws that relegate one group of people as second class citizens.”
Francis added that the grassroots group’s main goal
is to get people educated about Israeli and Palestinian concerns.

“Think of the thousands of people that will finally understand
that Palestinians are refugees who have a fundamental right
to return to their land of origin,” he said.
“Our city needs to be clear in not only supporting the rights of all refugees,
but especially the Palestinian refugees living in our own municipality.”

Alan Ronkin, the deputy director of the Jewish Community Relations
Council of Greater Boston, disagrees with Francis’ beliefs
that support for SDP is advancing, noting that a research
campaign run by his organization last year showed that
“public sentiment was running 10 to one against divestment.”

“The issue of divestment from Israel is dead,” Ronkin said.
“My reading is that people are kind of sick
of the whole thing happening in Somerville.”
Ronkin believes that deep down the questions on the ballot
are not calling for a battle for Israel’s survival, but instead are stances
from a radical group who don’t believe in a two-state solution.
“The JCRC is not going to stop everything because these guys
have decided to make this thing happen,” Ronkin added.
“This is not going to be a major focus in our lives.”
 
=================================
North American Delegations

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