Of the three Democratic front runners, who would you vote for today?

Mike Huckabee is truly Christian and progressive. He has proven what it means to look forward and to implement change without altering scripture to mean something different than what the Christians of the first century Church meant. There shouldn't be a inescapable connection with being a progressive and being a Democrat. There are many things that Democrats support, as do the GOP, that are in opposition to Christian truth. Huckabee presents a great vision for America.

Two comments made by Obama have stuck in my mind and continue to bother me. (Every candidates comments about Iran bother me.)

One, on the night of his Iowa victory, but not in his victory statement, was, roughly: "...we will remake America. And then we will go on to save the world."

That was in line with what he said in April to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs<.a>: "I still believe that America is the last, best hope of Earth. We just have to show the world why this is so."

That should sound rather suspect to any spiritual/religious person, whether fundamentalist or progressive or moderate or just confused. Christians, for example, might be forgiven for thinking that Jesus is "the last, best hope of Earth".

Clinton has said similar things, referring affirmatively to the "creative tension" between realism and "our deeply-held desire to remake the world as it ought to be."

Some of this, no doubt, is just patriotic boilerplate on both their parts. But it's still dangerous messianic imperialism, a continuation of the Manifest Destiny tradition. We don't need that line of thinking to be reinforced by even casual political rhetoric.

The other thing that Obama said, or wrote (in "The Audacity of Hope"), that bothers me is that, in occupying "the middle ground", he rejects the "extremes" that are represented by Rush Limbaugh and NPR.

NPR?

In December 2005, NPR ombudsman and former Vice President Jeffrey Dvorkin listed the number of times NPR had cited experts from conservative and liberal think tanks in the previous year. His numbers indicate an overwhelmingly conservative bias. His own tally (239 Right, 141 Left) showed that 63% of NPR experts from think tanks came from from right-leaning organizations while only 37% came from left-leaning organizations. The "left-leaning organizations" were two: the Brookings Institutiion, more of a centrist group, and another group that has Henry Kissinger on its board.

Taking Obama literally would put him solidly right of center. I wouldn't put him that far right, but I think he's more CrossCenter than CrossLeft. Granted, that's a big improvement over CrossRight. One could make a good case for "middle" at this juncture -- I won't argue that one way or the other at the moment. And playing to moderate and moderately right of center folk by classifying NPR as extreme is understandable. But it's so inaccurate....

I can't help but say Edwards on this one. He has spoken the most about trying to help those who need it most. Sure, we're overdue for a woman or non-white in office, but the best person for the average American is Edwards! I understand where he's coming from. My family has struggled ever since my parents got married. My dad has worked his fingers to the bone (literally) to provide an education for me because we're too "rich" to get help and too poor to pay for school outright. i don't have the best health, yet i can't afford the insurance to help me. i am in need of surgery that i can't afford! i can't afford the gas to get to work! at times i find myself wishing i was more poor in order to receive federal benefits just so i could get the things i need. John Edwards understands where i am, where most of America is living, living from paycheck to paycheck, praying that a family crisis doesn't come because they know they can't pay for it. The evangelical right-wingers are crying out for a "Godly man" to be in office... let Edwards show them what a true Godly man is.

I switched from Democrat in order to vote for Ron Paul in the Republican primaries. He's about the only real anti-war candidate who has a chance of winning!

At any rate, here is my latest articleJanuary 4, 2008

Jewish Voice for Peace Leader Said “Anyone who thinks that Israel had anything to do with 9-11 is naïve.”

By Wendy Campbell

The time has come
To say fair’s fair
To pay the rent
To pay our share
The time has come
A fact’s a fact
It belongs to them
Lets give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep when our beds are burning

The time has come
A fact’s a fact
It belongs to us all
Lets give it back

- Lyrics to “Beds Are Burning” by Midnight Oil
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10BbpGKLXqk

The time has come for me to finally write about my experience with The Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) beginning back in 2001 shortly after the tragic events of 9-11.

I had already begun to learn the Truth about racist, apartheid Israel shortly after the Second Intifada (uprising or “shaking off” in Arabic) in September 2000 during a lunch break from my job at the time, while I was listening to the famous progressive Berkeley-based KPFA radio station. What I heard mesmerized me. When I reached the parking lot at my workplace and parked my car, I couldn’t get out of the car because I felt compelled to listen to the entire interview between an Israeli, a Palestinian and an American with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What I was hearing were things the mainstream US media never really addresses nor rarely reveals to the American public: mainly the conflict as seen from the Palestinian point of view, as well as from an objective point of view (the American non-Zionist interviewer).

I also learned from this interview certain generally hidden facts such how the Israeli prime minister Yitzshak Rabin, who was really going to make some important concessions with the Palestinians in order for Israel to finally take some real steps towards justice and peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, was assassinated in 1995 by an extremist Zionist Jewish Israeli. That act completely halted any genuine peace process since then, so the assassin’s motive for killing him was achieved. Obviously this man’s ideology has a strong support base because ever since then, the “peace process” has never seriously been revived. The “peace process”, which is completely dominated and controlled by Israel, and backed by its supporters in the US government, is really just a “stalling process”, while the ethic-cleansing campaign continues unabetted. Contrary to what the Israelis claim, the Palestinians have no “partner in peace” in the Israelis, who have not stopped stealing more Palestinian land nor their collective punishment against all Palestinians via crippling roadblocks, turning off electricity and water supplies at will for long lengths of time, and basically literally starving the Palestinians in what amounts to huge open-air concentration camps. The only thing that can stop this madness is for the USA to stop all manner of support to Israel and for everyone to boycott apartheid Israel, just as apartheid South Africa was boycotted.

At any rate, much of my experience about this time can be found in my first ever political article, which is entitled “Why I Am A Pro-Palestinian Activist” and at the website for my tiny media company MarWen Media. You can find the link at: http://www.marwenmedia.com/articles_images/WhyIAmProPal.html

However until now, I have never written about my experience with the Jewish Voice for Peace, which I had discovered shortly after 9-11 from a flyer I had picked up at La Pena Cultural Center when I had attended an excellent slideshow entitled “Face of the Occupation” which was presented by Penny Rosenwasser of MECA (Middle East Children’s Alliance) which is directed by Penny’s partner, Barbara Lubin, an anti-Zionist of Jewish heritage. Penny is also active in the JVP. She calls herself a Zionist, but I think this is simply just because of a deep desire on her part to be close to her Jewish community, most of whom are Zionists.

Her slideshow was the inspiration for my first documentary “Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid”. Penny Rosenwasser, a Jewish American peace and human rights activist, was very generous to me, allowing me to film her slideshow with my video camcorder and even giving me a copy of a photo she took of a Jews-only by-pass road in Israel, where Palestinians are shot and/or arrested if they are caught trying to use it. Of course there are no signs there which say “No Palestinians Allowed” because that would broadcast the fact that Israel is an apartheid country by putting it in writing, confirming the obvious. For more details on these apartheid roads in Israel including that photo, see http://www.marwenmedia.com/articles_images/ApartheidIsraelRoads.html

Her slideshow and this photo of the apartheid by-pass road for Jews-only are featured prominently in my documentary. When I premiered my documentary “Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid” at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley, California, the very place where I saw her slide show about a year earlier, I donated half of the proceeds to the Middle East Children’s Alliance.

At any rate, I discovered the Jewish Voice for Peace from that flyer at her slide show and decided to try to attend one of their meetings, since it was the only group of any sort that I knew about which was discussing Middle East politics. At that time, most Americans were simply clueless about Israel and the Middle East in general. I should know. I used to be one of them.

I showed up at the doorstep of the house in Berkeley where a meeting of the Jewish Voice for Peace was being held sometime in early November 2001 and asked the greeter at the door if I was “allowed” to attend even if I am not Jewish . The person let me in.

I found myself seated next to Prof. Joel Beinin, who teaches at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley. We chatted before the meeting began. He was very nice and informative. In fact, he told me he was going to give some lectures about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a class at the UC Berkeley and when I expressed an interest in attending it as a guest, he gave me his permission. I did show up with my camcorder and filmed the entire lecture. Unfortunately, I was just getting used to my camcorder and the quality is not not great, so I did not include any of it in my documentary “Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid”. (Note: Ultra hardcore Zionist and Islamaphobic David Horowitz has relentlessly slandered Prof. Beinin for his activism with JVP and beyond.)

Anyway, everyone was seated in the crowded room, in chairs, sofas and on the floor. Lincoln Shlensky sat on the floor in the middle of the crowded room. He was one of the original members and leaders of the Jewish Voice for Peace, which was formed in 1996, after the provocative opening by the Netanyahu government of an archaeological tunnel under Jerusalem's Temple Mount, which led directly to confrontations in which 65 Palestinians and 14 Israelis were killed. After that conflict seemed to settle down a bit during yet another sham of a “peace process”, the Jewish Voice for Peace basically disbanded. However, shortly after 9-11-01, the group was resurrected again, apparently to deal some damage control. One astute observer of the Jewish political scene has made the reasonable statement that if the JVP didn’t exist, then the Likuds would have invented it themselves for creating good PR for Israel, but really nothing much more than that, in that there is no positive change in the direction that Israel has embarked on since day one with regards to the human rights of the non-Jewish native Palestinians.

“ANYONE WHO THINKS ISRAEL HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH 9-11 IS NAÏVE.” says JVP Leader

Lincoln Shlensky, a pleasant Jewish man, a student at UC Berkeley and who seemed to be in his mid-30s, twisted himself left and right in order to look around the room and make eye-contact with everyone as he opened the meeting with the proclamation that “anyone who thinks that Israel has anything to do with 9-11 is naïve.”

Hmmm… I thought to myself. Very interesting. If this was indeed the case, why are we even here? It immediately seemed to me like a bit of self-deception at best and deliberate deception at worst. It quickly became obvious to me that the Jewish Voice for Peace was really basically about doing damage control with regards to Israel’s obvious role in 9-11 and they were running interference for any attempts to blame or criticize Israel in any way for the 9-11 attacks.

At that time, I believed, like many others, that 9-11 was blowback as a result from the unjust US foreign policy in the Middle East which is basically blind, unconditional support for Israel. This includes funneling billions of US tax dollars yearly in cash and in military aid to Israel, as well as providing diplomatic cover and even military cover as demanded by Israel. This is despite the fact that aggressive and war-mongering Israel, which is a racist, apartheid, Jewish supremacist state is built upon an on-going campaign of ethnic-cleansing of non-Jewish native Palestinians from their own land, homes and businesses. Israel habitually breaks International Laws and UN Resolutions, since day one of its existence in 1948 when it began the process of wiping Palestine off the map, with the consent of the ruling international political elites at the time.

It was only until about 2003 to 2004 that I came to believe that Israeli agents actually played a direct role in making 9-11 happen, as in Larry Silverstein allowing the Mossad to plant explosives in the World Trade Center buildings which brought them down on that fateful day. Not only did WTC buildings 1 and 2 implode/explode but so did building 7 which was not even hit by a jet. This is really the smoking gun. But more about that later.

I had begun to study in depth about the true nature of racist, apartheid Israel beginning with a little booklet I had picked up that night at La Pena when I went to Penny Rosenwasser’s slideshow “The Face of the Occupation”. This highly recommended and well-known booklet is entitled “Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict”. It was written by Jews for Justice in the Middle East. I found it spell-binding, and it can be printed out in PDF form or just read it at http://www.cactus48.com

Anyway, back to that first JVP meeting. Although I didn’t agree with Lincoln’s proclamation about the innocence of Israel with regards to 9-11, I felt that I maybe I could learn more about it all and even partner up with some Jewish people who might feel the way I did on some political activist activities.

Talk about being naïve! That didn’t happen, although I really gave it the good girl scout try.

At that time, JVP didn’t even have a brochure! I was surprised at how they basically just sat around talking or you could say, kvetching, about how they felt. Really it was basically just a big therapy session for them, to manage their anxieties, their feelings of guilt, and worries about how this would all affect the Jewish community, the Jewish state of Israel and its relationship with its sponsor and benefactor, the United States of America.

I was ready for taking some real actions, as in printing up some postcards to hand out to educate the American public and to mail to politicians about the Israel-Palestine conflict. At that time, I was actually wanting to promote the Two-State Solution, two separate states of Israel and Palestine, because at that time I thought that was the more “realistic” solution. When I tried to enlist the help of others on the JVP’s subcommittee of “Stop US Military Aid to Israel” to help me pay for some postcards to be printed up promoting the Two-State Solution (since I worked at a printing company, and would get a discounted price on printing them) I got no takers. In fact, one Jewish woman at JVP even ridiculed my efforts. So I decided to take a different tact and got some other activists and friends outside of the JVP to help me pay for the postcards calling for the Two-State Solution based on the 1967 borders. When I asked the leaders of JVP if I could reference their website on the postcard, even just to say “For more information”, not claim “Endorsed by JVP”, they said N-O. No way. I was perplexed and getting discouraged with them and their lack of a sense of urgency about doing anything or making a strong stand on anything besides just saying they were “against the occupation”, which is akin to saying you are against rape but not sexism.

Some of the members of JVP began to make it clear that I was not really welcome to be there, especially Joel Beinin’s wife Miriam, and another woman, and a couple of the men, too. So I stopped going to their meetings.

To be fair, some members of JVP were exceptionally kind, generous and open to me. And perhaps many of them are as clueless as your average American. But unlike your average American, they are committed to maintaining Israel as a Jewish supremacist state. Anyway, the time had come for me to part ways with the Jewish Voice for Peace.

I later became an advocate of the One-Democratic State solution, after realizing that the Two-State Solution is really just official apartheid, shortly before I made my documentary “Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid” in 2003, and I had some postcards made up advocating the One-Democratic State solution for disseminating to the public and politicians.

Later I ran into a JVP member at an event screening a documentary about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and I said hello to him. He was very cold to me and mentioned that he had heard that I was getting “radical”, to which I said, I guess you could say that (according to some people that might seem true, but not to me) , but I am NOT violent. Then he said darkly, “You better be careful.” It sounded like he said it as a threat to me rather than out of concern for my safety.

I have long since abandoned any attempts to seek approval or permission from Jewish people with regards to my activism efforts. I act only based on my beliefs in The Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus Christ. I don’t need to managed by Jews, although some of them seem to think I do. I avoid seeing everything through a Jewish filter by avoiding as much as possible the US mainstream media. I do read it or watch it occasionally just to keep current of the latest propaganda, but I get most of my news from a wide variety of sources on the internet, sometimes even from the website of the progressive Israeli newspaper the Ha’aretz. I also count myself as fortunate to have some good Jewish friends who are also activists in seeking justice, freedom, equality, peace and security for the Palestinian people.

FIRST SEED PLANTED WITH REGARDS TO 9-11 AS THE INSIDE JOB

I first heard about 9-11 being an inside job from a flyer that was being disseminated at some anti-war rally by some activists in San Francisco on behalf of Lyndon LaRouche, a political figure who has run for president numerous times. The flyer just said something about how the US government was involved with making 9-11 happen and that the Arab terrorists were just patsies. At first I was just flabbergasted! I even called up a representative for LaRouche and questioned him about this bizarre assertion. After I finished talking with this man, I hung up, still shaking my head, still thinking it was really far-fetched. However, the seed had been planted and it started to slowly grow.

On July 4, 2003, I attended a 9-11 Truth event at an artsy building where many kinds of creative and alternative events regularly occur in the Mission district of San Francisco. At that time, my belief that 9-11 was indeed an INSIDE JOB by elements in our own government had fully blossomed.

Then, as the extremely convincing evidence kept pouring in about the use of explosives to bring down the World Trade Centers which were owned by neocon Larry Silverstein who is best friends with the Israeli ex-Prime Minister Netanyahu (one of the authors of PNAC), along with the reports of the “dancing Israeli spies”, the warnings made to the Israeli Mossad front company Odigo in the World Trade Center, Mossad agent Dominic Suter and his Urban Moving Systems with his van with explosives, the Fox News 4-part series on “Israeli Spying in the US” which was later spiked from its archives, the manifesto of the neocons’ Project for New American Century, I have become totally convinced that along with Americans Bush, Cheney, and Israeli-Americans Wolfowitz, Perle and their neocon cohorts, that Israeli agents played a major role in “making it happen” with regards to the 9-11 attacks. The free-fall collapse of Building 7 was really the biggest smoking gun, along with Larry Silverstein’s video-taped admission about it being “pulled”, which can be easily found on the internet. The fact that the government and the mainstream media have refused to address any of this in any meaningful way confirms my conclusions shared by many others, that there is a cover-up of 9-11 as an inside job and the apparent Israeli connection as well.

I have reached my conclusions in a way that is very similar to the account by Ryan Dawson at this URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/9-11neocon.php

Another book that really lays it on the line with all the evidence and proof is “9-11 Evil” by Victor Thorne and Lisa Guiliani available at: http://www.wingtv.net/911evil.html

There are by now lots of books and many DVDs that really make the case for 9-11 having been an INSIDE JOB, although many do not mention the Israeli connection directly or at all in some cases, mainly due out of fear of retaliation and being smeared by the common smear words used by shills for Israel towards anyone who dares to criticize the Jewish state of Israel, Zionism and its political supporters. The typical, predictable smear words include” “anti-Semite”, “nazi”, “hitler”, “holocaust denier”, “white supremacist”, which are certainly all completely untrue accusations with regards to myself and are generally untrue with regards to anyone who is smeared as such by Israel-firsters. It’s just a method the Israel-firsters use to attempt to intimidate anyone from criticizing Israel and Zionism, in an all out dirty effort to maintain the status quo with regards to US support for the Jewish supremacist state of Israel.

But more and more people are forging ahead with criticizing Israel and its racist policies anyway because their sense of moral consciousness speaks to them much more loudly than any Zionist thug ever could. For example, President Jimmy Carter and the Professors Walt and Mearsheimer have had to endure such smears even though their criticisms of Israel and its ardent supporters were rather milk toast.

ANYONE WHO DOESN’T THINK THAT THERE IS AN ISRAELI CONNECTION TO 9-11 IS NAÏVE says Wendy Campbell

In concluding this article, to come full circle, I would like to make the proclamation that anyone who DOESN’T think that Israel was involved with 9-11 is naïve, at best.

*****

(For the record, as per their website and its mission statement, the JVP does not advocate for the one-democratic state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where all its residents would enjoy completely equal rights regardless of religion, ethnicity or race; nor does JVP support a boycott of Israel similar to the boycott of apartheid South Africa; nor does it make a stand for supporting the Palestinian refugees’ Right to Return to their ancestral homeland as equals. In other words, the JVP cleverly and deceptively avoids these issues with smoke and mirrors, making only ambiguous statements, all the while trying to place all the blame for Israel’s racist policies on the USA.

Just for one example of their deceptive ” blame game” while trying to maintain their innocence of playing any part in Israel’s sins : they bought shares of the Caterpillar company which manufactures the vehicles which Israelis use to demolish thousands of Palestinian homes, orchards and businesses every year, so that the JVP can go to Caterpiller’s investor meetings to complain about Caterpillar’s sales to Israel, when the JVP should really just put pressure on Israel and the Jewish settlers there to stop buying these Caterpillar vehicles and to stop using them to demolish Palestinian homes, orchards and businesses. The Caterpillar tractors don’t demolish Palestinian property on their own- they are operated by Zionists! In other words, the JVP are essentially themselves Zionists who do not want to disturb the status quo with regards to maintaining US economic support for Israel as the Jewish supremacist state that it is, nor does the JVP recognize or address the racist nature of Zionism, nor do they consistently directly criticize their brethren and the leaders in Israel.

The JVP also decry the use of the words which accurately describe Israeli policies and actions including apartheid, ethnic-cleansing and genocide. Simply put, the JVP wishes to preserve the Jewish supremacist nature of the state of Israel but place the blame on others, specifically the US, for the inevitable strife and injustices that are created as a result of the racist ideology of Zionism.)

Wendy Campbell is an American human rights activists whose documentaries include: “Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid”, “Rosa Remembers Palestine”, “Neturei Karta: Jews Against Zionism”, and “Syria: Land of Friendly People and Hidden Treasure”. Her many articles have been published on a wide variety of websites and newspapers (google: “Wendy Campbell Palestine Israel”) and also appear at her websites: www.marwenmedia.com and www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com She can be reached at info@marwenmedia.com

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i prefer bill richardson, but john edwards is my next choice.