i'm still mad for norman

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And all he stands for....


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love, 99
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disoriented

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Maybe we should change the name of my theme song to "Unmoored". I have been feeling fairly markedly disoriented for days. I don't feel like I'm in this world. I'm not of it, but I'm supposed to be in it while not of it. I remember feeling this way the day before the '89 earthquake that dropped the Bay Bridge and rattled my house so hard I thought a truck was driving into it. I'd like to think it's my frequency rising to the next dimension, but I don't think that's it. Somebody look up in the Merck Manual for a dread disease that is characterized by a pervasive sense of being out of phase with one's surroundings. Please. I'm not depressed. I'm not happy. I'm not any particular mood. I'm just very, very weird, as though I'm splitting off, a combined lightness and heaviness that do not intersect, do not meld... out of phase, out of phase....

I'd get in my tub if I had one! Yessir. I'd get in there and soak myself good, right this very now. My not-a-tub will not do for this. I know it in advance. I know when I can get in there and pretend, despite the unlovely maneuvers required, and when I just cannot. Now is such a time... and it's been going on for many days. I'm OUT of phase.

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And, it's clear that I still cannot brook the sight of Alan Dershowitz, even late at night, without screeching at the top of my lungs and sputtering invective so loudly that lights switch on across the neighborhood. It takes months and months to regain the mental poise to even MENTION this stuff. And even out-of-it as I am right now, kabam! I want to reach through my monitor and rip out his throat. Not Zen. You might agree.

Anyway, I think RT may be airing American Radical this weekend a few times... but I'm obviously unable to get through it still, much as I love and respect Norman.

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I am knowing about all this because I couldn't wait for Max interviewing Alex to come up on YouTube, and so have been watching it air—via LiveStation—on RT. I heavily recommend it to you. It is good for the spirit to hear them together. They are nonpartisan. They are screaming the truth. They are making a dent. They are supporting us in making a dent. At LAST some REAL MEN are carving out the space for SENSE. They are a couple of the kind of guys I've always wanted on my side... and they perfectly crystal clearly ARE on my side.

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love, 99
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he's all wrong for me

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And only nine months younger than me, but I'm still mad for him. He sounds so sick and/or tired here, and I'm desperately hoping he's glowingly healthy now, vigorous, renewed, brimming with vitality, despite the unbearable drag of this work turning into his life's work. How could I dream of marrying this guy when I can only endure this in fits and blasts? How could he have any of those wonderful qualities I so fervently wish upon him while engaged in this battle against relentless evil for so damn long? I mean, meditating on the courage is contagious theme tonight, I went directly about thinking of Norman, whose courage is incandescent and vastly more communicable than any few hundred others on this theme.

Norman Finkelstein is a damn anomaly. Men as manly as he is are generally not scholars... or don't stay scholars. Scholars are generally not very courageous. Tony Judt definitely qualifies as a courageous scholar, rest his gorgeous soul in a cosmos of love. And there are some others way up there, but in the vast populous of scholarship, far fewer than 1% qualify in this magnitude.

He's a city-dweller. Anathema. But maybe he retreats to the sanity of pastoral bliss, or I could get him to. I feel he needs trees to hug, dirt to dig, a nice long bathe in the pounding negative ions of a waterfall or the sea, a crackling fire, clean air, weather bouncing off completely natural surfaces, perhaps a side trip into the thought experiments of the great propounders of Out There. Norman needs shaking out, a dip in a vat of health, a glimpse at the vastness of inner space, reminding of aliveness, of all the beauty... or he might just die of unremitting disappointment. Maybe he doesn't get caught up in the auditoriums full of young things who surely think he's practically God.

Right?

Oh. Right. Sure.

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love, 99
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the passphrase of the day is "wolf blitzer"

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Sometimes I think I should put a Passphrase of the Day box in my sidebar. So many mornings I awaken with the distinct impression I'm supposed to say a certain word or phrase on my blog, as though my teacher wished to confirm that sense was pouring into my sleeping mind, that I'm actually receiving the dharma flooding my way. For all I know, it could be a demon trying to break in. People can cloak themselves when doing this transmitting. So the downside of this psychic ability is that I grew adept, used to letting it just roll off me like the proverbial water from a duck, very early due to the ridiculous amount of inputs from lust-sodden men. I feel utterly unthreatened by received transmissions from out there, and it's pretty much automatic to just let them evaporate into fumes that waft off into the ether. Some people are driven mad by this action. Doesn't faze me... and I think this has been a stumbling boulder in my full awakening, helpful as it has been with the Sex Object crap in the past.

Anyway, I decided today to acknowledge the passphrase. "Wolf Blitzer"... which is an utterly alien term that almost certainly would not pop up here unless circumstances somehow became outrageous enough that I felt the need to deal with his bullshit on my blog, in front of you. It was NOT one of those things where the phone is ringing or an alarm going off and I'm filling in the obnoxious noise with nonsense words screaming in my dreams. There was a glowing sacred geometry going on in mid air, a little neon sketch floating before me, and its dimensions were being condensed and expanded between someone's hands and "Wolf Blitzer. Wolf Blitzer. Wolf Blitzer." was ringing in my own voice right before I woke up and went, "Wolf Blitzer? Gimme a break."

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love, 99
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i mean, what could keep norman finkelstein from wanting to marry me?

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I can't think.
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Here is some of the Russian coverage I have been avid to see since I first saw the dreaded news bulletin about the attack.

From RIA Novosti:

"Moscow has expressed condemnation and deep concern in regard to the incident in international waters, first of all taking into account of the large number of dead and injured among the participants of the humanitarian caravan," Pankin said, adding: "It is obvious that using weapons against civilians and seizing ships on the open seas without any legal basis are considered severe breaches in common international legal norms."

Pankin said Russia sees the incident as confirmation of the fact that Israel must stop the blockade in the Gaza Strip and make genuine steps in easing the humanitarian and social situation for the residents of the region.

Why the fuck can't that be a quote from Hillary Clinton in the NYT?

Hmm? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH EVERYBODY?

More Russian state media coverage....
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Sling shots and marbles, a length of less than one-inch pipe, something that looks like a bar ripped from the ship itself, a broom handle and possibly a hammer. One IDF fuck with a boo-boo on his cheek and another, who might not even BE an IDF fuck, a little bloodier.

All stuff, obviously, grabbed when they were coming under fire from commandos dropping from helicopters.

From earlier reports and video footage, we know one for certain and probably two were already dead BEFORE the IDF hit their decks. So, you'll pardon my apparent bloody-mindedness here in stating that these "weapons" were the self-defense.

Al Jazeera has been live blogging this whole mess.
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have i mentioned i want to marry norman finkelstein lately?

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Look at him squinting into the RT camera. Why the hell didn't they just let him speak and air what he said? Drives me nuts. I hope to find more and better to post from him, because, yes, I have been so witless with wrath and then the desire to enlist in the Turkish Navy, that I have not been able to articulate some SALIENT facts very well, and, boom, here it is, coming right out Norman's mouth. Ka-ching.

As evidenced, vividly, in the post below, the Israeli Parliament has been aware of this and formulating their response to this for quite a while. This was a carefully considered act by a lunatic state. Just so. That is a VITAL point.
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Cynthia McKinney weighs in....
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George Galloway weighs in.
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That's me as I was watching the RT video, right before I started yelling for the hairdo to shut up and let Norman talk.
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the droner follows finkelstein

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On the list of Jews too good for Israel.
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oh, it's april fools' day

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Dumb observance... and everyone born on the first of April is ridiculously loath to offer up this stat... to the point of it being the immediately obvious reason you can't get them to tell you their birthdate. In fact, they steer away from the subject of birthdays altogether. Same thing applies in morticians. They never mention anything about what they do for a living....
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Not fooling links:

Brown's Bottom and Climate Bubble... that plutocrats are capitalizing on carbon trading does NOT mean one must deny climate change. Think of a better approach or we're finished. Kaiser Report, video, half hour....

Bond vigilantes, silver market catastrophe, perfidies of the New York Fed... Keiser Report, video, half hour....

I guess we can try hitchhiking....

Shit continues to pound the fan in Mexico....

Fuck Obama... and don't, baby, don't....

Norman at Harvard Law... video or audio, hour and forty-five minutes....

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i want to marry norman finkelstein

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But can at least now settle for hugging one of his books.

He fills my heart to the bursting point.
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It has occurred to me that this may have something to do with why I'm still single. I keep expecting men to be like this... like Norman. You want to know what's manly? Just go watch every video with Norman Finkelstein in it, and you'll have the picture.
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i sacrificed a couple days' groceries to buy this book

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The beautiful Ann El Khoury emailed me a link to a review with which I particularly ardently agree—I will only tolerate discussion of the two state solution because of Norman—and since I want to marry Norman, I took the leap. I am particularly interested in reading him on the Gandhian approach to overcoming genocidal maniacs. He has taken the trouble to wade through all of Gandhi's journals, making himself already head and shoulders above other Ghandian scholars, and I wish to have benefit of some of that.

Don't we all? Shouldn't we pay attention?

Yes.

Yes we should.
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UK expels Israeli diplomat over Dubai case
By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 47 mins ago

LONDON – Britain took the extraordinary step Tuesday of expelling an Israeli diplomat for the first time in more than 20 years, after concluding there was compelling evidence that Israel was responsible for the use of forged British passports in the plot to slay a senior Hamas operative in Dubai.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said trust between the two countries had been badly dented, demanded formal assurances it never happen again and — in an unusual step — issued travel advice to U.K. citizens warning their identity details may be at risk if they visit Israel.

Miliband told the House of Commons that the expelled diplomat, who has not been named, was removed following an investigation into the use of 12 fake U.K. passports in the Jan 20. slaying in Dubai.

"We have concluded that there are compelling reasons to believe that Israel was responsible for the misuse of the British passports," Miliband said.

Britain's Serious and Organized Crime Agency found the forged British passports were copies of authentic documents handed to Israeli officials for inspection either in Israel or other countries, Miliband said. He said the fakes were high-quality and almost certainly "made by a state intelligence service."

"The actions in this case are completely unacceptable and they must stop," Miliband said.

However, Miliband insisted Britain has drawn no conclusions over who is responsible for the killing of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, saying investigation by Dubai authorities was continuing.

Dubai authorities accuse Israel's Mossad of carrying out al-Mabhouh's killing in a luxury hotel room, and have identified at least 26 suspects in an alleged hit squad — members of which used forged European and Australian passports.

Interpol has a wanted list of 27 people in connection with the slaying. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied any involvement in al-Mabhouh's death.

Israel's ambassador to London Ron Prosor said he was "disappointed by the decision of the British government" but pledged that the two countries would retain close ties. "The relationship between Israel and the United Kingdom is of mutual importance," he said.

France and Ireland are also carrying out inquiries into the use of four forged French and six Irish passports. Ireland's foreign ministry said it would consider further action once an investigation with Irish police is completed.

Dubai police believe three Australian passports and a German one were also used in the killing.

At least 15 of the names used by the suspected killers match those of Israeli citizens who are dual nationals of Western countries. All have denied involvement.

Miliband said in the cases of the 12 British citizens, there was "no evidence to suggest that those 12 were anything other than wholly innocent victims of identity theft."

He said one victim told investigators "to go to bed a citizen and wake up as a wanted terrorist is shocking."

"The fact that this was done by a country which is a friend, with significant diplomatic, cultural, business and personal ties to the UK, only adds insult to injury," Miliband said.

Miliband had been due to attend a reception Tuesday to mark the refurbishment of the Israeli Embassy in London, but was forced to cancel in order to make his statement to Parliament.

The expulsion of an Israeli diplomat from London is the first since 1988, when attache Arie Regev was removed for "activities incompatible with diplomatic duties," a euphemism for espionage. Britain also barred a second Israeli, Jacob Barad, from returning to Britain in 1987. Both men were suspected of coordinating Mossad activity in the U.K. and of involvement in the forgery of British passports.

At the time, Shimon Peres — now Israel's president — promised Britain it would never again forge British documents.

Miliband, who said he discussed the case Monday with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, confirmed that Britain had chosen which diplomat would be expelled and said "it was not a random" choice.

But British and Israeli officials declined to confirm reports that the diplomat was Mossad's London station chief.

Arieh Eldad, a lawmaker from Israel's National Union — a hardline opposition party — called Friday for the military attache of the British Embassy in Israel to be expelled in response.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on whether Israel would take retaliatory action.

Diplomatic expulsions are a rare sanction against foreign governments. Britain kicked out four Russian diplomats in 2007 over the country's refusal to extradite to London a suspect in the poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko.

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More from al-Jazeera....
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And, oh, silly me, I thought Tel Aviv was Israel's capitol:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is criss-crossing the Washington power grid Tuesday, striving to explain his country's position in a widening debate over its plans to construct new housing in east Jerusalem.

Netanyahu had a Capitol Hill meeting scheduled with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., a day after holding talks with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. He plans to meet later Tuesday at the White House with President Barack Obama.

Netanyahu has been trying to deflect U.S. criticism of his government's announcement of plans for 1,600 housing units in a part of Jerusalem that Palestinians claim as their own. He bluntly asserted before the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee Monday that "Jerusalem is not a settlement. It's our capital."

The plan has drawn sharp criticism from the Obama administration. Clinton told a pro-Israel audience Monday that provocative Israeli land policies in areas claimed by the Palestinians are not in Israel's long-term interests and undermine U.S. credibility as a mediator in the Mideast peace process.

Obama has remained out of the fray as Clinton and other U.S. officials have rebuked Israel for its announcement of new construction in east Jerusalem, which came while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting the country. The announcement embarrassed Biden, a staunch supporter of Israel, and led to new stress in relations between Washington and its top Middle Eastern ally.

Obama agreed to see Netanyahu on Tuesday at the White House - Obama's first meeting with the Israeli leader since the severe diplomatic breach. But the meeting will be closed to reporters, an unusual choice when hosting a close ally and a sign that suggested the rift may not be entirely healed.

Pfeh.
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Norman on Democracy Now! — Part One — Part Two

You really don't need to bother with Part One, the broadcast part. Part Two is the web special and it ROCKS. Norman rocks. It's all I can do to keep from going back up to the top of the page and pleading with him to marry me again....
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norman in prague

[click image, video playlist, 75 minutes]

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The sound is good and loud... and maybe we all ought to play it simultaneously... see if it raises some consciousnesses....

Of course, for those of us who listen to Norman every chance we get, we could almost give this lecture for him....
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Actually, you know what? Even though Norman is my hero and I wanna marry him some kind of fierce, I sometimes, not that often, but often enough to mention it, think he's a little drunk while giving his talks... as though he's giving himself a bit of liquid courage... or something... maybe stoned... maybe pain pills... just a little on the giddy side. The guy is outright brilliant. It's, in a sense, a waste that he should have to spend his whole life working on turning us sensible about Israel. He is more courageous than any number of other people you want to lump together to balance him. He rocks so hard I can barely ever find any words beyond I-WANT-TO-MARRY-NORMAN-FINKELSTEIN in praise of him, but I do wonder about this sometimes.

Take this lecture. He's seated, with a bonk on his forehead and very ponderously repeating points over and over, even when he's given himself a time limit. Is that him fogged up or is this what it takes to drill it in? I really would like to know.
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splendid idea

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But the part about this that rocks the most is hearing of the solidarity between Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. My fist shot into the air! I'm probably still high from listening to the Progressive Dullards of America coming out strongly for unity with "paleo-conservatives" and libertarians, but, dammit, peace and freedom fighters the world over have my undying love and admiration.
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After all, we ARE talking about some of the worst murderating fucks of all time.
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i would do ANYTHING to marry norman finkelstein

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I'm not exaggerating.

He's really good in this too....

WHAT a man! A true human.
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filthy livni is scared to travel

[click image, Save me, Sarko! Those awful anti-Semites are after me!]

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Oh, darn! Even if it's just temporary, this bit is happy news indeed:

UK court 'issued warrant for Livni'
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2009
00:46 MECCA TIME, 21:46 GMT

A British court reportedly issued an arrest warrant for Israel's former foreign minister on charges relating to Israel's 22-day war on Gaza, before apparently withdrawing it after it was found she was not in the country.

Tzipi Livni, the leader of the opposition Kadima party, had been expected to travel to London this week for an event organised by the Jewish National Fund, followed by meetings with British government officials.

Livni cancelled the visit two weeks before the event was due to take place.

Israeli media reported on Monday that Livni had called off the trip fearing that she would be arrested after a pro-Palestinian group won a warrant for her arrest.

The British foreign office issued a statement on Monday saying it was looking into the incident and its possible effect on the peace process.

"The UK is determined to do all it can to promote peace in the Middle East and to be a strategic partner of Israel," it said.

"To do this, Israel's leaders need to be able to come to the UK for talks with the British government. We are looking urgently at the implications of this case."

Israeli land, air and naval forces began bombarding the Gaza Strip last December saying that it wanted to stop rocket attacks by Palestinian fighters.

More 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the offensive, while 13 Israelis, including 10 soldiers, died over the same time period.

The thought of these despicable criminals against humanity being scared little sweaty rats for even a minute pleases me. After all, how can we hope to make their despicable deeds purely historic if we can't make the miserable evil murderating fucks realize even for a moment the reality of what they do?

WATCH THIS HOUR OF NORMAN FINKELSTEIN IF YOU ARE AT ALL CONFUSED ABOUT THE PREMISE FOR THIS.... [Q & A from same event]
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norman's penn state lecture

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I put all fourteen of the videos onto a playlist so you could watch/listen in peace.

i wanted to consult the jazzman on this

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I keep catching wisps of it elsewhere, and it has been too ugly to pursue, but finally I decided to check with Gilad. You might not want to neglect the link to a Press TV piece at the bottom of his post... bearing in mind my points about their journalists having something of a record for telling the truth about Israel and Palestine.

Also found there a clip of Palestine in 1896 which is very noisily silent....

[Finkelstein interview turns into English after half a minute....]

insignificance

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Here you have a particularly vivid account of both the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and the insignificance of the efforts to free them. You are going to take exception to the term "insignificance" here, but I am speaking from the vantage point of effectiveness. Those engaged so selflessly and courageously in these efforts are beautiful, and numerous, and a number maybe some scholar might eventually be able to estimate are dead... with the oppression and genocide only worsening over all these heroic and way too often lethal efforts. These would-be liberators of Palestine must content themselves with knowing they have not wasted their lives in front of the boob tube tsking, that they have done things, even given their lives, continually risk their lives, invite the depredations of the Holocaust Industry, the deathless Shoa Business and its legions of mindless ninnies dedicated to echoing its tripe. This is the payoff for activism in this matter. You get to know you are virtuous. You get to hope your sacrifices can someday inspire enough people that the problem can somehow be solved. You get to hold up the fantasy of South Africa's victory as the beacon of the possibility of eventual success.

This video is the perfect antidote to the appalling nuances of Goldstone's interview with Moyers that made me wish I could reach through my monitor to pour bleach on both men at that table... kill the sophistry like I kill the molds perpetually seeking to establish themselves on window sills, toilet bowls, the North side of my house.

But it is still just prize-winning insignificance.

Norman Finkelstein had a vision. He is someone who has sacrificed so much for Palestine, whose whole life has been about freeing Palestine, about doggedly and brilliantly insisting on sense at every turn, who has never stooped to the sickening sophistries on display at Moyers' table last night. I fancy his close attention to Gandhi's journals drove his mind up into the air where the power of significance is significant. He saw a door open a crack, that exalted opening of conditions for the true manifestation of positive intent, he saw how to break the siege for real, break it in the sense that it is broken for good, not just momentarily breached. The demons of delusion closed and locked that door.

It could not contain a drop of vengeance. It could not be the Palestinians scoring on Israel. Israel and the United States are unbreakably defended against those. Anything done with a whiff of either is doomed. Barring space aliens landing to arm them with weaponry that devastates ours, PALESTINE CANNOT FREE ITSELF. That has been made increasingly clear over the course of sixty-one years, and beyond any doubt for the last forty-two.

Every generation to hurl itself against this wall fails utterly to comprehend the meaning of this amount of time daily proving the imperviousness of the malign intent at work against the people of Palestine. They don't care if you blow yourself up. They don't care if the whole world sees your baby shot point blank by an Israeli soldier. They don't care if you wail so you can be heard in the Betelgeuse sector of the galaxy over the beautiful girl whose body was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer because she stood between it and the Palestinian home she was determined to save. It doesn't matter. It is insignificant. They are NOT turned from their purpose. You get to pick between thinking well of yourself, sacrificing all your energies in bottomless negativity, and martyrdom... none of them significant.

Norman was the first person to transcend this stupid waste of human life, catch a gander at precisely what could prevail, but I guess he's just not charismatic enough to have commanded your uncomprehending devotion so that your uncomprehending delusion couldn't ruin it.

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As if to put the seal on my words, my first foray out into today's solar system of news outlets on the tubes rendered up this poisoned tidbit:

Support for Netanyahu and Likud growing, Israeli poll shows
Middle East News | Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Oct 23, 2009, 9:34 GMT

Tel Aviv - Support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ruling Likud party has grown since he took office over six months ago, according to an opinion poll published Friday.

If elections were held today, the Likud would get six more mandates to become the largest party in the Israeli parliament, said the survey by the Dahaf polling institute, commissioned by Israel's biggest-selling daily, Yediot Ahronot.

The hardline but mainstream party, which in February elections won 27 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, would get 33 if a new ballot were held today, it indicated.

The centrist Kadima party of former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, now in the opposition, would stay the same with 28 Knesset seats.

Livni's Kadima technically beat Likud in the last elections, by a margin of just one mandate. But she stood no chance of forming a government, as the bloc of right-wing parties headed by Netanyahu's Likud had become a combined majority in the House.

Netanyahu rejected Livni's call for power-sharing, and on March 31 formed a government with the 15-seat far-right Israel Beiteinu party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the 13-seat left-to-centre Labour Party of Defence Minister Ehud Barak and a number of other right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties.

According to Friday's poll, support for Barak's Labour Party has further nose-dived and it would get only seven mandates if elections were held today.

Netanyahu's personal popularity was high, with 41 per cent of those asked saying he was the most suited to be prime minister, compared to 31 per cent who chose Livni and 7 per cent who opted for Barak.

The Dahaf Institute questioned a sample of 500 adult Israelis this week and the poll had a margin of error of 4.5 per cent.

Yes, yes, I know there are actual Israelis in Israel who are body and soul against this heinousness in charge, but, well, they're not exactly polling well over the last year or so, now are they?

finkelstein on the goldstone report

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And he's not whistling Dixie....

I will be wanting badly to see this, of course....

thoughts on norman finkelstein quitting the gaza siege-breaking march

[click image, video, Norman Finkelstein on innocence of means and innocence of ends]

I always listen as closely as I can to Norman Finkelstein. I have on my sidebar here a button leading to all his lectures and interviews I've posted. Just scroll down to his picture amid the links there and click on his face any time... or click on his name at the footer of this post, and find it all. So you will see I'm not ignorant about who he is and what he does. I am actually darn up to date with him, and he has taught me much about many things, especially about the Israel/Palestine mess.

So I was taken aback by the news that he quit his own march, the breaking of the siege he has been so avid about... but also instantly comfortable in the knowledge that there could not possibly be any unworthy or selfish motive for such a drastic step. It's just flat out not reasonable to assume that this man could do that at this point in his career, at this point in his life, not after all the brilliant books, all the brilliant lectures, all the brilliant work he does to make those books and lectures ever more supportive of positive manifestation of humane intent. There just is no question about that.

You might have questions.

They cannot be based on anything having to do with Norman Finkelstein. They will be based on your own ideas, your own feelings, your own prejudices, your own mental conditioning... they will be based on the content of your own mind, NOT on what is abundantly evident about Norman Finkelstein.

You will want to say, yes, yes, he's done all kinds of good work, yadda, yadda, but this is a betrayal of the Palestinian people! Or he's a prima donna. Or he's a white guy who wants to dictate to brown guys. Whutever.

He wanted to study up on the possibilities of non-violent civil disobedience for the liberation of Palestine. He went to Gandhi himself... to his volumes and volumes and volumes of journal entries, notes, the works. I've listened to him speak about quite a lot of what he's taken away from what he's seen so far.

The kernel of this is that the siege of Gaza can be broken only if the "innocence of means" in the nonviolent action are matched with an "innocence of ends". It cannot succeed unless the rightness of the ends can't be disputed by most people... oh, just listen to him at the image link....

He, of course, is dealing with a lot of professional activists and many, many, many academics from all over. The old saw about herding cats applies. Not enough of these people have the knowledge, wits or emotional resources to cut to the kernel and execute an action that fills the bill... cuts to the heart of the problem and SOLVES it. At least as many have the hubris to assume that remaining faithful to what Dogen meant when he said, "Stop doing and perform!" is some sort of insult to decency, a betrayal of the cause, arrogance, a power play... whutever... sound and fury signifying less than zero, the hoof marks on the barn door from jackasses kicking.

He means to use his energy and his vitality in performance, not waste it in mere busy-ness that only calls itself "action".

What action there is to it will cause the appropriate effect. That's the travesty.

You should have listened to Norman.

Some seem mystified by his lack of detailed explanation of his reason for pulling his endorsement of this action as well as his personal involvement. Someone who is serious about the relief of suffering will not endorse what increases it. Someone whose greatest wish it is to shine a light on the way for you will not participate in folly to appease your ire or to win a popularity contest. This isn't a game. This isn't an abstraction. This is just about as blood and guts as it ever gets. EVERYTHING is on the line for Palestine, and the one out of us all who has not lost sight of that is Norman Finkelstein.

Do you think bullying debating tactics can change that?

Really?

What word can encompass the size of the ignorance that engages in such ugly futility?

[The stupidest part of all this controversy and confusion is that he stated this very clearly both before and after his resignation from this endeavor. Perfectly clearly, omitting nothing, and yet there are all these scandalized and angry and sightless gripes flying around Blogistan. Just disgraceful.]

[Luckily for everybody, I got fed up with the scrolling involved to argue with the horse's asses pissing and hissing at me over at PULSE, and then my computer died, or I would have subjected each of those bitching about my hero worship to this... and we'd've had to go into this long Zen Lesson about it all... and it would have been headachesville.]

norman finkelstein, my hero, quits the gaza freedom march

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Why I resigned from the Gaza Freedom March coalition:

The original consensus of the International Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza was that we would limit our statement to a pair of uncontroversial, basic and complementary principles that would have the broadest possible appeal: the march to break the siege would be nonviolent and anchored in international law. I agreed with this approach and consequent statement and decided to remove myself from the steering committee in order to invest my full energies in mobilizing for the march. During the week beginning August 30, 2009 and in a matter of days an entirely new sectarian agenda dubbed "the political context" was foisted on those who originally signed on and worked tirelessly for three months. Because it drags in contentious issues that--however precious to different constituencies--are wholly extraneous to the narrow but critical goal of breaking the siege this new agenda is gratuitously divisive and it is almost certain that it will drastically reduce the potential reach of our original appeal. It should perhaps be stressed that the point of dispute was not whether one personally supported a particular Palestinian right or strategy to end the occupation. It was whether inclusion in the coalition's statement of a particular right or strategy was necessary if it was both unrelated to the immediate objective of breaking the siege and dimmed the prospect of a truly mass demonstration. In addition the tactics by which this new agenda was imposed do not bode well for the future of the coalition's work and will likely move the coalition in an increasingly sectarian direction. I joined the coalition because I believed that an unprecedented opportunity now exists to mobilize a broad public whereby we could make a substantive and not just symbolic contribution towards breaking the illegal and immoral siege of Gaza and, accordingly, realize a genuine and not just token gesture of solidarity with the people of Gaza. In its present political configuration I no longer believe the coalition can achieve such a goal. Because I would loathe getting bogged down in a petty and squalid public brawl I will not comment further on this matter unless the sequence of events climaxing in my decision to resign are misrepresented by interested parties. However I would be remiss in my moral obligations were I not humbly to apologize to those who, either coaxed by me or encouraged by my participation, gave selflessly of themselves to make the march a historic event and now feel aggrieved at the abrupt turn of events. It can only be said in extenuation that I along with many others desperately fought to preserve the ecumenical vision that originally inspired the march but the obstacles thrown in our path ultimately proved insurmountable.

My heart is heavy for him. No one has worked as hard and sacrificed so much for peace and justice where the bloodstain of aggression and oppression grows ever wider.

On the one hand, how could he be so falsely modest as to trust the leadership of this to passion-addled others, but on the other, he was right to want to concentrate on getting the people to this because he's the one most of us trust in this. I just can't stand that once again something with such a huge potential for changing the world has been ruined by our good old standard greed, hate and delusion.

It's like quicksand here... or a cosmic pit full of glue and grease.