Israel, Hamas, and more news in November 2012

 

 

More news is coming about the Israel and Gaza conflict. The cover story made by some in the Western mainstream media is that Israel is completely right and some of them try to minimize the outrage of the deaths of Palestinian civilians. Some in the media feel that Israeli bombs are simply a reaction to Hamas terror or the blame all of this conflict on Hamas' side. Many people like Mohammed Sulaiman in Gaza said that they are afraid to leave their home since he heard the sound of bombs exploding in the near distance. Nissim Nahoom (an Israeli official in Ashkelon) said that his situation is no different from the Gazans. This is wrong, because Gaza is experiencing more dropped bombs than Israel. Mohammed was interviewed by the Sunni Muslim Isah Sesay (a Sister). Mohammed heard bombs growing louder in sound. The fact is that a Palestinian civilian in Gaza is in far more danger of being killed or injured by one of Israel’s precision armaments than an Israeli is by one of the more primitive rockets being launched out of Gaza. Operation Cast Lead was Israel's previous attack on Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009. 3 Israelis were killed by rocket attacks and six soldiers were killed in that fighting. In Gaza, nearly 1,400 Palestinians were killed (at least 1,000 were not involved in hostilities according to the Israeli group B'Tselem). Most of these civilians were killed by so-called precision bombs and missiles. Today, the people in Gaza are stuck in Gaza. They live in one of the most densely populated areas on Earth and it's being attacked. Israel denied Gaza a port, it controls its airspace, and the right of its inhabitants to move to other Palestinian territory recognized by the Oslo accords (in the West Bank). Hamas isn't hiding among Palestinian civilians constantly per se. It's that Palestinians civilians are forced to live in a tiny strip of land that is now a war zone. Hamas isn't clean in this affair, but there are other culprits responsible other than militants. The confrontation between Israel and Hamas comes in the midst of Israel choking the life out of Gaza (its the destruction of its economy, the damage to its infrastructure, denying its people the freedom of movement, and its people being mistreated). The people of Gaza have their right to use their own waters to feed themselves. According to one provision of the Oslo accords, Gaza was given fishing rights up to 20 miles off its shore. Israel has slowly whittled that down to just three miles, with Israeli navy vessels firing on fishing boats even inside that paltry limit. Palestinians in Gaza are entitled to struggle for their right to live and prosper. That struggle is a form of self-defense – not aggression – against occupation, oppression, colonialism and imperialism. This conflict started with Israel and Hamas using tit for tat violence against each other. Palestinian factions wanted a truce on November 12. Then, Israel assassinated Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari causing the violence to escalate. According to Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, that in the period leading up to Jabari’s execution Egypt had been working to secure a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas. Jabari was apparently eager to agree to it. The peace activist had already met Barak to alert him to the truce, but it seems the defense minister and Netanyahu had more “pressing concerns” than ending the tensions between Israel and Hamas. Netanyahu represents the more reactionary factions in Israel as opposed to the peace movement (which consists of Israelis and Palestinians indeed). Now, Netanyahu is boosting in his polls. Ironically, the reactionaries yell about a fiscal crisis, but they say nothing on U.S. taxpayer dollars to subsidize Israel's rocket interception system called Ion Dome to millions of dollars. I believe in trading with other nations and giving money to other nations in terms of food and other things. Yet, I will never agree with sending taxpayers’ dollars to another nation in military buildup, especially advanced weaponry). A nation should have their own responsibility to build their own military up. In the final analysis, it will take a non-military solution to solve this problem. It takes a political solution to solve this matter alone. In the final analysis, Palestine has made great progress (before the bombings in Gaza) in pushing for international statehood. Now, it's important to love the Israelis and the Palestinians. Certain evil factions want us to either express vicious hatred against either all Israelis or all Palestinians. I will not act in that fashion. Both Israelis and Palestinians deserve peace, dignity, and equality via political means.

 

 

There are still bipartisan talks on spending cuts. Democrats, Republicans, and the White House have made their first meeting recently. This meeting is about them discussing about the financial reform plan. Experts believe that the final deal will include budget cuts and possible tax increases. They want this plan to be adopted by the end of the year. The proponents of this plan want to avert what they deem as a "fiscal cliff." The fiscal cliff is when the Bush tax cuts of 2001 will expire. This will cause an across the board spending cuts and other tax and budget measures (like higher taxes for everyone, not just the super wealthy). This is set to take effect by January 1, 2013 unless Congress and the White House form a plan. The corporate dominated media believes that harsh measures must be manufactured in order for the fiscal cliff to be obliterated. So, most of the corporate dominated mainstream media agree to have huge cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. They want cuts to other necessary domestic social spending (when we need more resources geared to health care, fighting against poverty, and sustaining the elderly in retirement). The first 70 minute meeting was ceremonial and important for the political establishment. The people in the meeting include the following individuals: Vice President Joseph Biden, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House aides, sitting down with the four top congressional leaders: Republican House Speaker John Boehner, Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Obviously, President Barack Obama has been reelected. We see that the House is most ruled by Republicans and the Democrats control most of the Senate. The first meeting of these politicians unfortunately represent the union of 2 corporate, cartel-capitalist political parties that try to defend the interests of Wall Street (at the expense of the poor & working class). The President met with the CEOs of the 12 biggest U.S. corporations including other liberal leaders (from labor to civil rights activists). The President believes that he wants to extend the Bush tax cuts for lower and middle income families. I agree with him on that point. The President said that he wants to reduce the deficit in a balanced way. He wants to work with the Republicans. The reactionaries are wrong to claim that barriers to growth are federal taxes and regulations. The barriers to growth are the anarchy and profit gouging of the corrupt corporate internationalist system. Republicans Boehner and McConnell have a willingness to discuss revenue increasing plans. It reminds to be seen if both men will support tax increases for the wealthy for real. The Democrats Reid and Pelosi say that they want flexibility on cutting spending on social programs as demanded by the Republicans. Boehner said that in his remarks at the White House meeting he proposed a combination of tax and spending measures “consistent with the president’s call for a fair and balanced approach.” He added, “To show our seriousness, we put revenue on the table as long as it’s accompanied by significant spending cuts.” The Republicans even want cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, etc. Ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will get about $850 billion over the next ten years. So, the establishment wants more than 3 trillion dollars in cuts from domestic social programs. A secret document proved that in July 2011 (during the debt ceiling crisis), the White House was willing to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, cut future inflation-linked increases in Social Security benefits, and imposed other significant cuts in social spending. The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House are trying to postpone the 110 billion dollars in spending cuts called sequester that is scheduled to happen in January (half of these cuts deal with military programs). The administration is considering an income tax rate increase of 37 or 38 percent for those making more than $250,000 per year. The current rate is 35 percent. This issue is known by people, but it has been downplayed during the 2012 election campaign. There are alternatives to austerity though. Webster Tarpley, Bernie Sanders, and others have talked about these alternatives. In the stage of the human rights movement, we should fight austerity for real. The union of reactionary Republicans and corporate Democrats seek to have austerity. We can have amnesty for student loans because of the ca. 1 trillion dollar student loan debt. We should have no cuts in wages, benefits, social services, public services, and the social safety net. We should have only cuts in waste, fraud, and abuse (which don’t affect any human being in an immoral fashion). All foreclosures should end. We should have single payer health care for all. We should end the war on terror ASAP. We should a living wage. Economically, the super wealthy and large corporations ought to pay their fair share of taxes. All corporate, unjust loopholes should end (doing this including stopping offshore tax shelters can reduce the deficit is about 1 trillion dollars over 10 years). We can tax capital gains and dividends in a fair way to raise over $730 billion over 10 years. Wall Street paying a speculation fee or tax (in 1 percent on the sale of credit default swaps, derivatives, etc.) can reduce the deficit by $350 billion over 10 years. A progressive estate tax on inherited wealth of more than $3.5 billion can raise more than $70 billion over 10 years. Ending all tax breaks and subsidies to big oil, gas, and coal companies can reduce the deficit by more than $40 billion over the next ten years. We can reform our tax code and do other actions to raise billions of dollars in revenue over 10 years. These actions and more than handle our deficit issue.



 

Now, I know that there are strengths in the Affordable Care Act. Yet, there are weaknesses to it as well. One weakness of the law is that is allows the insurance company to have too much control over our health care system. The election is over. Our health care costs are still very high. The average cost for health insurance is about $15,745. The reactionary, Tea Party types falsely believe that the law is some government takeover of health care. The left paradigm believes that it is the most sweeping healthcare reform since Medicare. The truth is not in those extremes. The truth is that the law has good parts, but the private insurance industry morphs its power as a means for them to control of health services in a slick fashion. While it is positive that the PPACA requires coverage of people with pre-existing conditions and prohibits lifetime caps, it can’t control what people pay for insurance, because it doesn’t limit actual premiums. Premiums have risen 13% on average since the Act was passed. Now, we have the growth of mergers in the insurance world. In late August, the third largest insurance company in the US, Aetna announced it was buying Coventry Health Care for $5.7 billion. Coventry provides Medicare and Medicaid services, thus the takeover expands Aetna’s Medicare and Medicaid business. Being part of Aetna enables Coventry to grab more consumers on more state-run health insurance exchanges, reducing competition in the process. The Department of Justice is examining anti-trust issues surrounding the deal, but it’s still expected to close in mid-2013. Some companies are using mergers as a means to move profits around and circumvent restrictions and other tax laws. The law doesn't start to cover the uninsured fully until at least 2013. Even Congress passed Medicare in 1965 and President Lyndon Johnson rolled out coverage for millions of seniors in eleven months, back in the days before they even had computers. Today, we have the internet, UPS, and other technologies. Yet, 22,000 Americans now perish each year because they can't get or can't afford medical care. Real health care should come to people as soon as possible. Even the small public option is small to 10 million. The law wants individuals to be mandated to purchase health insurance policies from private insurers. The law was heavily influenced by Big Pharma, because Big Pharma was greatly involved in the negotiations of the creation of the Affordable Care Act. The corporate media have silenced people who wanted a single payer health care system, which is superior to the ACA. We should have a publicly funded, everybody in nobody out system where it's single payer health care. The President supported such a system, but he rejected it. A single payer Medicare-For-All system will eliminate 500,000 insurance company jobs and replace them with 3.2 million new jobs in health care for a net gain of 2.6 million new jobs according to a study by the National Nurses Organization. That's as many jobs as the US economy lost in all of 2007. The independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in March 2012, estimated that the PPACA will leave up to 31 million people completely without health insurance, and lacking access to “affordable” health care. The ACA law is based on the plan created by the reactionary Heritage Foundation many years ago. The same goes for health insurance exchanges, another idea formulated by conservatives and supported by Republican governors and legislators across the country for years. An exchange is as pro-market a mechanism as they come: free up buyers and sellers, standardize the products, add pricing transparency, and watch what happens. Market Economics 101. The law has many legitimate parts to it, but it isn't a truly universal health care law at all. Single payer will create hundreds of billions in annual wages and local and state tax revenues for cash strapped cities and towns. The Obama plan does address some of the major problems inherent in the current system, such as allowing parents to continue covering young adult children and preventing pre-existing conditions from barring access to coverage. These are certainly worthy goals, but a true single payer, Medicare for all plan would address those problems too, and would also address the biggest obstruction to true health care reform, the reliance on private health insurance companies to provide care for every person. Still, private insurance companies can manipulate the market place by giving Americans access to inferior coverage with high deductibles. A national single payer health care system is needed. We must fight for this goal completely. Private health insurers should never control every aspect of our health care system in America at all. It's a shame that many Republicans and Democrats agree with making war globally, bailing out big banks (without adequate help to the poor), and austerity like measures in the world. I do believe that the ACA is better than the status quo, but single payer health care is better than the ACA. Having such a program is entrepreneurial regardless of what Max Baucus says. I believe that some states rejecting Medicaid expansion is truly disgraceful. Universal health care is the way to go. I think that the Affordable Care Act should be improved upon (in making truly universal health care) not totally eliminated.

 

Now, Mohamad Rafea was killed by FSA terrorists and deathsquads. He was an actor in Syria. He was kidnapped and killed by the FSA. He spoke out many times about the truth in Syria. Rafea Mohammad exposed the civil war in Syria. The truth is apparent. There has been Western backed death squads that is fomenting violence in Syria as a means to promote a puppet, pro-Western state. The whole situation is a slick way to divide and conquer the citizens of Syria. Many of the terrorists are allied with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UK, and the USA. This is similar to the situation in Libya where NATO funded terrorists to harm Libya. Libya has a huge oil supply and the Western oil companies are trying to gain more resources in Libya. Gaddafi before he died wanted an independent currency among Africans and Muslims in order to compete against the dollar. The elites controlling the global major central banks don't like that. Saddam wanted euros to trade not the dollar. Iraq later suffered sanctions and an invasion. Before NATO destroyed NATO, there were sanctions against Libya including a no-fly zone. Soon, Libya experiences war crimes by al-Qaeda related terrorists who lynched black men, women, and children (as predicted by Gaddafi before he was murdered without a trial). Gaddafi wasn't perfect, but NATO is wrong in this affair since they backed the rebels in causing the destruction of Libya. The CIA led covert operations in Libya and throughout the Middle Eastern region as well. One Syrian woman debates a pro-FSA person on the Australian show "Insight." The rebels have murdered religious minorities and caused a lot of chaos in the nation of Syria. Even Christians have been killed or beheaded in Syria. Mimi Al Lahm is a Syrian woman said that the Muslim Brotherhood wants to eliminate the secular government of Syria. She doesn’t support Assad, but she doesn't want extremists to harm the Syrian government. You fight injustice by reform & legitimate activism not by aiding NATO backed terrorists. Russia and China (with dealings with Iran and Syria) are emerging as a superpower and the Western elites want to control the geopolitical both nations. Syria should have less corruption, but a foreign policy that is tolerable without NATO/Western domination. Assad isn't perfect, but the Muslim Brotherhood should not control all of Syria. Syria should maintain a separation of church and state. Syria should have reform, but extremists ought not to control the political instruments of the nation of Syria at all. The Syrian civil war continues. The West is openly backing foreign al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria while they overtly claim to oppose al-Qaeda. The truth is that al-Qaeda was fathered by Western backed terrorists back in the late 1970's. Now, it is a tragedy that innocent children have to die as a product of drone attacks and war crimes. It's wrong to use our taxpayer dollars to fund these war crimes under the guise of promoting democracy of "humanitarian aims." It is not right to see Pakistani civilians to be blown up by bombs or to see this unjust, immoral war on terror to continue. Like I have mentioned before, the President of the United States can act revolutionary and reject this war on terror nonsense once and for all or he can continue in the pragmatic "compromising" centrist path. That is the choice that the brother must make. We have a responsibility too. We should always reject corrupt corporate power. We should fight to restore our beleaguered civil liberties. We should promote the strengthening of the existence of democratic unions. We should fight for a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures. We should implore the White House to end all American militarism and imperialism.

 

I will always oppose the agenda of the Jesuits. Now, it's time to renewal showing information about this very important topic. The Jesuits were created in August 15, 1540 with the blatantly stated goal of destroying the Protestant Reformation (which promoted the freedom of religion and the freedom  ofspeech. The usage of the pen and the sword for self-defense purposes are God-given rights not privileges granted by a King). A human beings has the right to their own conscience without coercion or tyranny. Now, in the 1700's, European nations banned them or the Jesuits, because of their nefarious policies and their infiltrated on various European nations. Today, the Jesuit General is Adolfo Nicolas and the current Pope (always wearing white) is Pope Benedict XVI. The Roman Catholicism is a perversion of true Christianity. There are many examples to prove this. One simple reason is that there is no concept of priests not being married, bishops not being married, cardinals, or Popes in the New Testament. Each person who responds by faith in Christ becomes a believer priest with a God-given competency to understand and apply the Bible with guidance from the Holy Spirit. Even the apostle Paul made it very well clear that presbyters and overseers (or episcopus) can be married if they wanted to. No man should be called Holy Father except God. I will not venerate statues and I will never religiously bow before a man. One of the most famous Jesuits in history was a 19th century man by the name of Peter De Smet. He was the Jesuit agent of the Great Plains and the Pacific Northwest. He was the assistant vice Provincial of the Jesuits in Missouri. He worked with many Mormons in Utah as well. Peter De Smet gave Mormon Brigham Young advice on finding the Salt Lake Valley for the Mormon's "Zion" location. Brigham Young called himself the Muhammad of the West and he had dozens of wives. Mormonism is a Masonic religious institution, because Mormonism copied the handshakes plus other rituals from the Lodge indeed.

 

By Timothy