Category: Politics

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Does Free Speech Protect Hate Mongers?

Here (by here I mean after the fold) is an email I got today from Jewish Voice For Peace which is as moderate of a voice as you’ll find when discussing issues on said matter.

It just got me thinking, should anti-hate groups and free-speech activists be fighting to defend hate-mongers? At what point do you draw the line to say enough is enough or do you not draw the line because after all, it’s only speech? I was watching West Wing yesterday and it reminds me of a line from a Season 2 episode titled “Midterm” in which Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) says referring to regulations against free speech, “laws like that were passed in the South during the Civil Rights Movement to root out members of such terrorist organizations as the NAACP.”

I have always been a big time believer in giving every single minority group a voice to be heard regardless of how outrageous, unrealistic and downright hateful they maybe. I don’t think we should have the right to judge what is free speech and what is not because there is no concrete definition for it. The definition is always changing and we can never be sure that what is unacceptable one day would be mainstream the next. For that if you allow one group to say something, you have to allow all of them.

Continue reading “Does Free Speech Protect Hate Mongers?”

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Israeli Apartheid? You Be The Judge.

CBS’ 60 Minutes has quite an eye-opening piece and quite frankly an amazing segment exposing Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians.  The piece is by Senior CBS Foreign Correspondent Bob Simon, who is Jewish living outside Tel-Aviv and produced by Robert G. Anderson. 

“While my heart still wants to believe that the two-state solution is possible, my brain keeps telling me the opposite because of what I see in terms of the building of settlements. So, these settlers are destroying the potential peace for both people that would have been created if we had a two-state solution,” Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, once a former candidate for Palestinian president, told Simon.

Palestinians had hoped to establish their state on the West Bank, an area the size of Delaware. But Israelis have split it up with scores of settlements, and hundreds of miles of new highways that only settlers can use. Palestinians have to drive – or ride – on the older roads. 



Gaza Justice Action Center has an appreciation page for those who watched the video and want to express their support that reads the following:

Thank you for exposing Israel’s apartheid policies against Palestinians during your January 25, 2009 piece titled: Time Running Out For A Two-State Solution?

It’s rare to find impartial meaningful news stories about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by American media outlets. Your story relayed to viewers the untold realities that are blocking peace progress in that region.

I urge you to produce similar balanced stories on the conflict and occupation. Thank you again

 

Credit: CBS – Time Running Out For Two State Solution

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Change? What Change?

So this video is a couple of days old but Jon Stewart analyzed Obama’s inaugural speech with certain speeches of our former President and it showed quite a few similarities. Not exactly the type of hope and change you were hoping would come to Washington. Also, Wired.com is reporting that Obama is lining up his administration exactly with the previous one on the issue of warantless wiretapping. 

The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.

Take off your optimism hats folks and get ready for a good dose of reality. We can all sit here and hope for things to change but we better keep the new President and his administration honest and true to their campaign “promises”. 


  

 

 

How disappointing. 

Credit: Gizmodo.

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One Last Goodbye?

The crowd of over 2 million people in DC certainly gave the previous president one heck of a send off. Stay classy folks. From the protest earlier in the day where an inflateable Geroge W. Bush was propped up for people to chuck their shoes at to the march on Pennsylvania Avenue towards the White House where people also launched shoes onto the lawn.

Secret Service remained relatively calm during the protests even conversing with the protestors to let them know what was allowed and what was not. I think at last check, only one person was arrested which is not bad at all considering how we have seen some in the police force react with a disproportionate response. The protestors were not hurting anyone and the Secret Service let them do what is allowed under the 1st amendment in the Constitution.

Anyways, here is the video from an MSNBC feed where you can hear the booing and also the “Hey Hey Hey Goodbye” chant towards George W. Bush – the ex. United States President.

Also, let’s hold judgment on what kind of President Barack Obama is going to be until we actually see some results. The hype behind what he is GOING to accomplished has pushed the bar so high that it has completely set him up for fail. Then again, here is a man who was going up political establishments who had settled down in DC for years and defeated them. Hopefully President Obama and his Cabinet can make the right decisions and not necessarily the politically motivated or easy decisions. 

Some of you Iheard me joke about wanting an immediate change in the country overnight. Along those lines, it will be interesting to see which few areas he tries to fix first as he has already halted the mess that was the Gitmo trials and following the confirmation of his Secretary of State and Treasury, I guess he’ll announce somethings involving them as well.

Good luck America, next four years will be, if nothing else, interesting to say the least.