OBAMA IS TRYING TO CENSOR THE INTERNET WITH TPP - HE MUST BE STOPPED IMMEDIATELY!

President Obama is holding secret meetings in Asia to ram through the TPP's Internet censorship plan, which would force ISPs to monitor our Internet use, censor content, and remove entire websites. Click here to push back! Share this action on Facebook Share this action on Twitter Now you can create your own petitions -- click here! Featured DIY action: Action Against Drones: If Not You Then Who? This is urgent. An Internet censorship plan is being finalized in secret meetings right now. We need all hands on deck at this crucial moment. Click HERE to learn more and  to join with RootsAction, OpenMedia, and other allies in speaking up. Here's the situation: President Obama himself is in secretive meetings with key political figures and lobbyists in Asia to lock the Trans-Pacific Partnership's Internet censorship plan into place.  We know from leaked documents that this secretive plan will censor your use of the Internet and strip away your rights.[1] If finalized, this plan would force ISPs to act as "Internet Police" monitoring our Internet use, censoring content, and removing whole websites.[2]  It will give media conglomerates centralized control over what you can watch and share online. We urgently need your help to fight back. Add your voice right now and we'll project a Stop the Secrecy message on key buildings in Washington D.C. to ensure Obama, the media, and everyone else knows this censorship plan must be stopped. This is huge: covering 40% of the global economy, the TPP is being called a legal "blueprint" for the rest of the world.[3] Once key leaders finalize TPP Internet censorship plans, those plans will be used to globalize censorship. You will be affected and this may be our only chance to stop it. Our attention-grabbing message will shine a light on their secret plan and will make clear to Washington lobbyists that the Internet community will never accept the TPP's secrecy or censorship. The more who speak out, the larger our projection will become, and the more people we can reach. This is a decisive moment: we need to act right now. Join with hundreds of thousands of people all over the world to shine a light on the TPP's job-killing Internet censorship plan. Let's send decision-makers and the lobbyists pulling the strings a message they can't ignore: "Stop the secrecy now." Thank you for being a part of history, After signing the petition, please forward this message to your friends. -- The RootsAction.org team P.S. RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Coleen Rowley, Frances Fox Piven, and many others. P.P.S. This work is only possible with your financial support. Please donate. Footnotes: [1] WikiLeaks: Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement [2] Electronic Frontier Foundation: TPP Creates Legal Incentives For ISPs To Police The Internet [3] U.S. “Bullying” TPP Negotiators Amid Failure to Agree. Source: Inter Press Service News Agency.   www.RootsAction.org Click here to unsubscribe and stop ALL email from RootsAction.

       

  

 Israel’s supporters seek to restrict the freedom of speech of America’s academics

Iymen Chehade

April 19, 2014 Updated: April 19, 2014 13:45:00

        

weekend eye

The Israeli occupation is not only a physical occupation of Palestine but it is also an occupation of the mind, specifically on college campuses in the United States. Pro-Israel supporters have sought to limit the discussion to frame the conflict to Americans in a particular way.

The growing success of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Movement(BDS) has alarmed pro-Israel supporters to the point that they have sought to restrict one of the most cherished American values, that of free speech.

Groups and individuals have targeted organisations and professors on university campuses around the US, seeking to intimidate them into silence. They have also pushed for legislation on the state and federal levels that would target the academic freedom of pro-Palestinian professors and universities.

As a historian of Palestine and as someone active in public policy around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I have personally witnessed and experienced these attempts at silencing. Most recently, my course at Chicago’s Columbia College was targeted.

In October 2013, I showed the Academy Award-nominated film Five Broken Cameras in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict course I teach. The film documents the weekly protests in the West Bank village of Bil’in. Since 2005, Israel has constructed a wall cutting through the village, stealing much of the land for Israeli settlers.

Shortly after showing the film to my class, I received an email from the Humanities History and Social Sciences Department requesting a 30-minute meeting with Dr Steven Corey, my chair, regarding a student concern.

At the meeting, I was informed by the chair that an unnamed student had said that I was “biased” for showing the film and counselled me on the need for “balance” in my class. “Balance” has been a frequent demand by Zionists to present Israel’s violent occupation of the Palestinians as somehow symmetric with Palestinian resistance.

When I asked why he did not ask the student to come to speak to me, he went on to say that when he was at college, he found a particular African-American professor to be unapproachable due to the anger he showed towards white students.

I pointed out to Corey that I was open to my students and I do not show hostility or anger based on students’ backgrounds or perspectives. He continued the conversation with a request for my college transcripts, stating that he wanted to “make sure that professors were teaching what they are supposed to be teaching” despite the fact that I have worked at Columbia for years and I am the one who designed and created the course.

A few days after the meeting and within two hours of registration beginning, one of the sections of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict course was eliminated.

The actions that the college took to remove the class are not surprising given the historic and continuous anti-Palestinian bias at Columbia and at other campuses around the United States.

That bias manifests itself in many ways, from the need for “balance” (a requirement not asked of professors covering other conflicts), to pressuring university departments to shut down discussion of the topic, to intimidation of academics who are not seen to follow the line.

Soon after the cancellation of the class, my union filed a grievance, claiming a violation of academic freedom. Columbia’s own statement on academic freedom ensures that “all faculty members are protected against institutional discipline or restraint in their discussion of relevant matters in the classroom, exploration of self-chosen avenues of scholarship, research and creative expression, and speaking and writing as public citizens.”

Not surprisingly the grievance was rejected, since the college itself decides on its own whether there was a breach of academic freedom.

Columbia is not the only place in America where anti-Palestinian bias is rampant. In March, a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine was suspended at Boston’s Northeastern University after members slipped mock eviction notices under dorm rooms to students to bring to light Israel’s continuous policy of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the confiscation of their property.

In March, the SJP at Barnard College in New York put up a banner entitled Stand for Justice-Stand for Palestine as part of Israeli Apartheid Week, a global week of action supported by millions who are in solidarity with Palestine. Barnard College took down the banner yielding to pressure that it “inadvertently gave the impression that the College sanctions and supports these events”.

The pressure extends beyond universities. After the American Studies Association passed a resolution calling for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions in December of 2013, there has been a backlash by Zionists to pass bills on the federal and state levels that would punish universities if they or their faculty support a boycott of Israel.

In one of a series of bills proposed by lawmakers around the country, Illinois State Senate Bill 3017 would obstruct the academic freedom of universities and professors and impose the will of Zionists who are threatened by the growing movement to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel until it conforms to international law.

However, they are fighting in retreat. Despite the many attempts to deny Palestinians their voice, more than 7,000 people signed a petition to restore the second section of my class.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) conducted an independent investigation and found that Columbia had violated my academic freedom.

As Dr Peter Kirstein states in the AAUP finding: “Professor Chehade has the academic freedom protection to present material in his own name in a course and articulate opinions in class.”

On March 31, Columbia College restored my class and I now have two sections in the autumn term. The Northeastern and Bernard SJPs have garnered thousands of supporters and Bill 3017 was withdrawn from the Illinois State Senate in April.

Supporters of Palestine are being heard, now more than ever in the United States. The BDS movement, in particular, has pushed back against the occupation and its supporters. There is also a greater awareness among supporters of Palestine of their ability to push back, and to organise. Without such widespread support, my voice, and in particular the ability of my students to gain a genuine education on the topic would have been silenced.

While there is an occupation in Palestine, there is also an occupation of the mind here in America.

Many Americans simply do not know the extent to which they are responsible for the subjugation of the Palestinians as a result of the financial, diplomatic and military support the US government provides to the state of Israel.

Thus, just as the Palestinians are resisting occupation in Palestine, there is growing American resistance to Israel’s criminal policies at academic and other institutions around the US.

In 2004, Palestinian civil society issued a call for the boycott, divestment, and sanctioning of the state of Israel until it complies with international law by ending the illegal occupation, providing full rights and equality for the Palestinians inside of Israel, and respecting the right of return for Palestinian refugees in accordance with United Nations Resolution 194.

The movement is growing in America, in Europe and in the Arab world. It is a true grassroots movement. But it is essential that governments, including Arab governments, are also part of this movement so that they are on the right side of history.

Iymen Chehade is a lecturer in Middle Eastern history at Columbia College in Chicago. He is active in the area of public policy and human rights regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

ichehade@hotmail.com

 

AUSTRALIA AND ISRAEL - AN ONGOING UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP

Israel's connections to many countries around the world are suspect to say the least, and the longer the connections exist the worse the outcomes will be in the end.

One of these strange connections is over the nuclear capacity of Israel. Long before the Vanunu incident in the 1980s when Vanunu went to the UK to reveal to the Guardian newspaper the extent of Israel's nuclear capabilities, Israel denied it had nuclear weapons or had developed any nuclear weapons capabilities.

Yet in 1979 when there was an identifiable nuclear explosion in the South Atlantic somewhere south of South Africa, there was conclusive evidence to provide the news that Israel and South Africa had colluded to build and explode a nuclear device. Apartheid South Africa had the uranium and the ability to make enriched uranium which is required for nuclear bombs, and Israel had the technological ability to manufacture and test such devices.

By the time Mordechai Vanunu left Israel, came to Australia, converted from Judaism to Christianity, and then left to go to the UK to reveal all to the Guardian and/or the New Statesman papers, the world had already understood that there was another nuclear power in the world, and this time in the middle of the Middle East.

The article in the Fairfax media during the week of 14 April 2014 discussing how much the Australian government knew and when they knew about the nuclear capabilities of Israel makes interesting but hardly revealing information.

NUCLEAR DEVICE EXPLODES IN SOUTH ATLANTIC IN 1979

Australia still denies Israel's open secret of a nuclear arsenal

Article in Sydney Morning Herald April 15, 2014:

Phillip Dorling

·                             

EXCLUSIVE

Israel's nuclear program: did Australia know?

Previously secret diplomatic files declassified by the National Archives reveal a longstanding policy to turn a blind eye to Israel's nuclear arsenal. Last week the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade again declined to comment on whether the Australian government thinks Israel is an undeclared nuclear weapons state.

Foreign Affairs Department briefing papers prepared for former Labor foreign minister Bill Hayden in 1987 state that ''intelligence assessments are that Israel has a small arsenal of nuclear weapons (possibly about 20). Israel's technological capabilities would enable it confidently to deploy such weapons without recourse to a nuclear test.''

Former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans has publicly described Israel as one of 'nine nuclear-armed states' committed to the 'indefinite retention' of their arsenals. Photo: Peter Rae

In a confidential exchange with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Hans Blix on September 22, 1987, Mr Hayden ''commented that there appeared no doubt that Israel had nuclear weapons''.

Mr Hayden and Dr Blix were talking against the backdrop of the treason trial of Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear technician who in 1986 disclosed detailed evidence of Israel's nuclear weapons production. The Foreign Affairs Department advised Mr Hayden to publicly deny knowledge of Israel's nuclear weapons capabilities. Mr Hayden told Parliament on September 17, 1987: ''We have no information to corroborate these allegations.''

However, Foreign Affairs' files, declassified in response to applications by Fairfax Media, reveal that Australia had been monitoring Israel's nuclear program from its beginnings in the 1950s.

Australia scooped US and British intelligence when in 1966 its Atomic Energy Commission obtained ''highly sensitive'' information from the French builders of Israel's Dimona nuclear facility, revealing the existence of a chemical processing plant to extract plutonium from spent reactor fuel.

By 1970 Australia's Joint Intelligence Organisation thought ''Israel could have some weapons''.

Australian policy remains unchanged, with the Abbott government deciding last October not to support a UN General Assembly resolution on nuclear proliferation in the Middle East - 169 countries voted for the resolution. Only five - the US, Israel, Canada, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia - voted against. Australia abstained.

Former foreign minister Professor Gareth Evans has long been closely engaged with nuclear disarmament issues. Last month he publicly described Israel as one of ''nine nuclear-armed states'' committed to the ''indefinite retention'' of their arsenals.

On Monday Professor Evans declined to explain why Australia had not acknowledged the existence of an Israeli nuclear weapons program, saying only: ''The whole world hasn't acknowledged it. I mean, this is the strange thing, but that's another story for another day.''

MICHAEL LEUNIG DESERVES AN HONORARY DOCTORATE

This work of art by Michael Leunig appeared in the Saturday Age Spectrum section on 29 March 2014

TAX RELIGION! TAX RELIGION! TAX RELIGION!

Joe Hockey wants to alter the age pension. He wants to increase pension age from 65 to 70.

Many people, because of the nature of the work they have done ovcr their lifetimes are unable to work till they drop!

Joe Hockey, like others before him, refuses to tax religions.

The main reason of course is that so many of the likes of Hockey belong to religions which have never had to pay tax and are, of course, inordinately wealthy.

If religions were to be taxed, governments would lose their votes - or would they?

Considering what some of the largest religions of this country have done to some of their younger parishioners - and got away with - and not had to pay for their misdeeds - it is a disgrace that governments have not imposed taxes on them.

Instead, governments of all persuasions deem it easier to scapegoat the poorest and most vulnerable members of the community and lower their incomes, one way or another, to increase their budgets.

Do they increase taxes to the already fabulously wealthy? Of course not!

It is time voters showed governments that they mean business when they tell them to tax the wealthy - and religions - but too many of the voting public seem to be fearful and intimidated by those in power.

...........and what is desperately needed is for taxes on alcoholic drinks to be magnified, durgs to be legalised and taxed, and governments to wake up to themselves and start actually governing!

CLOSE GUANTANAMO NOW!

THE GITMO CLOCK