[Peace-discuss] [OccupyCU] News Gazette article on 9/11 TruthConference, Sept. 22, Urbana Free Library

Fri Sep 20 21:14:55 UTC 2013

Good point Carl,

BUT, the conference on Sunday is NOT about anti-semitism, despite the 
efforts of David Gehrig to equate the two, it is about questioning the " 
official " Bush administration story about the 9-11-2001 attacks.

Mr. Fetzer's views on other subjects are irrelevant in regards to the 9-11 
conference.

Even IF Mr. Gehrig is correct about Mr. Fetzer being " anti-semetic ", the 
subject of the Holocaust and anti-semitism will NOT be the subject of the 
conference.

But just to set the record straight, did you notice how quick Mr. Gehrig was 
in trying to equate AWARE with anti-semitism, just because there was a 
debate on the Peace Discuss list ?
And also, ever since I can remember Mr. Gehrig's postings to Peace Discuss, 
NOT ONCE has he EVER posted an article or an opinion against the neo-con / 
neo-liberal wars of corporate empire.
Which makes me question Mr. Gehrigs TRUE purpose and agenda for being on 
this list.

So I will ask you Mr. Gehrig, do you or do you not support the past Bush 
administration and the current Obama administration's foreign policy in 
regards to ;
1) The invasion of Afganistan
2) The invasion of Iraq
3) Targeted Drone assinations of U.S. citizens
4) the Patriot Act, the Defense Authorization Act, and the Edward Snowden 
affair

Myself and others who have spoken privately off-list would really like to 
know.

David Johnson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "C. G. Estabrook" <carl at newsfromneptune.com>
To: "David Gehrig" <david-cu at nukulele.org>
Cc: "sftalk" <sftalk at yahoogroups.com>; "Stephen Francis" 
<stephenf1113 at yahoo.com>; <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>; "Jim Fetzer" 
<jfetzer at d.umn.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2013 3:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [OccupyCU] News Gazette article on 9/11 
TruthConference, Sept. 22, Urbana Free Library

> David--  Did you read my note? AWARE is against racism. I set out some 
> specifics.
>
> You seem to suggest anti-Semites should be prevented from "coming to 
> town," or speaking.
>
> If you don't believe in free speech for people you despise, you don't 
> believe in it at all.
>
> --CGE
>
> On Sep 20, 2013, at 11:48 AM, David Gehrig <david-cu at nukulele.org> wrote:
>
>> Carl handily demonstrates the problem. Fetzer is a flood of Holocaust 
>> denial, an inherently antisemitic enterprise. Francis, while not 
>> motivated by antisemitism, does not have any basic problem with passing 
>> along the antisemitic crap from Fetzer, including the claim that the 
>> Jewish dead of the Holocaust has been intentionally inflated by a factor 
>> of ten.
>>
>> Did Carl notice any of this? I mean, hey, only a notably and nationally 
>> known antisemitic speaker -- and Barrett is just as bad -- come to town, 
>> is all. Why on earth would a self-proclaimed anti-racist organization 
>> have a problem with antisemites coming to town?
>>
>> Why would AWARE care that a nationally known Holocaust denier is coming 
>> to town?
>>
>> Well, that depends. Which kinds of racism is AWARE actually against?
>>
>> "Nazi - schmatzi" AWARE sez, "we don't care, as long as he's not a 
>> neo-liberal!"
>>
>> @%<
>>
>>> On Sep 20, 2013, at 10:43 AM, "C. G. Estabrook" 
>>> <carl at newsfromneptune.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> "...The more interesting question at this point, of course, is this ... 
>>> where does AWARE stand?"
>>>
>>> Why does David consider that "the more interesting question"? AWARE has 
>>> not been involved in the Gehrig/Francis contretemps, other than having 
>>> its listserv <peace-discuss> the locus of the debate.
>>>
>>> There are members and friends of AWARE who think that the 9/11 Truth 
>>> Movement is on to something - indeed, that it is perhaps the most 
>>> important political question in the US today.
>>>
>>> There are others (I'm one) who think that Chomsky has it right: "its 
>>> major impact has been to draw off energy from trying to do anything 
>>> about the problems that have arisen" - i.e., Obama's ongoing wars.
>>>
>>> AWARE, the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort of C-U, was founded immediately 
>>> after the attacks of September 11, 2001, by residents of 
>>> Champaign-Urbana and members of the University of Illinois, who saw that 
>>> the U.S. government would use those crimes (whether or not it had guilty 
>>> knowledge of them) as an excuse to carry on and expand its decades-long 
>>> wars for the control of Middle East energy resources.
>>>
>>> For a dozen years now, members and friends of AWARE have worked in 
>>> Champaign-Urbana to end the killing by the Bush & Obama administrations, 
>>> by informing their fellow citizens of the real nature of the "war on 
>>> terrorism," in opposition to the largest and most sophisticated 
>>> propaganda campaign in history, conducted by the US government, and 
>>> directed at the American people.
>>>
>>> In fact, the US has been carrying on wars in the Middle East for more 
>>> than two generations, practically since the end of the Second World War. 
>>> (The reason is not far to seek: if the principal product of the Mideast 
>>> were asparagus, we wouldn't have half the American military there.) 
>>> AWARE is directed against the ongoing (and expanding) wars for economic 
>>> control by the American 1%. (See the recently published "On Western 
>>> Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare," by Noam Chomsky and Andre 
>>> Vltchek.)
>>>
>>> AWARE has from its beginning been concerned about the racism bound up 
>>> with those wars, viz.,
>>> (1) the US government's use of anti-Arab (and anti-Muslim) propaganda, 
>>> even though a principal US client is the world's most reactionary Muslim 
>>> state, Saudi Arabia;
>>> (2) the US government's support for an officially racist state, Israel, 
>>> its other principal client in the region, as a "stationary aircraft 
>>> carrier" in its Mideast crimes; and
>>> (3) the US government's employment as soldiers and mercenaries of poor 
>>> African-Americans and Latina/os (although a recent study suggests that, 
>>> controlled for class [so to speak], the exploitation of these 
>>> communities is not disproportionate).
>>>
>>> It's also been argued within AWARE that anti-racism (and identity 
>>> politics in general) has been a fall-back position of an American 
>>> liberalism unable to counter the vicious class war carried on by 
>>> neoliberalism for more than a generation - and to that extent it's a 
>>> distraction from the sources of the ongoing "Western terrorism." (For 
>>> the opposite view, see Dave Roediger's contribution to this list.)
>>>
>>> The efforts of AWARE and many similar groups across the country have 
>>> recently produced a victory for the only enemy the president and the 
>>> neoliberal parties fear - the US populace. Opposition from the Left and 
>>> Right (and from all races) is growing outside the control of the 
>>> Republicans and Democrats; it's stymied for the moment Obama's expansion 
>>> of the war.
>>>
>>> --CGE
>>>
>>>> On Sep 18, 2013, at 8:47 AM, David Gehrig <david-cu at nukulele.org> 
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Steve, your unwillingness to address Fetzer's now well-established 
>>>> antisemitism does not magically negate that antisemitism. Neither does 
>>>> it negate your personal moral culpability for inviting a nationally 
>>>> known Holocaust denier to come speak.
>>>>
>>>> The more interesting question at this point, of course, is this. Now 
>>>> that Fetzer's made it clear that he is motivated by antisemitism, that 
>>>> he does pillage white power sites looking for goodies to use against 
>>>> The Jew -- where does AWARE stand?
>>>>
>>>> Does AWARE oppose antisemitism this blatant?
>>>>
>>>> Do only some kinds of anti-racism result in AWARE action?
>>>>
>>>> Is AWARE anti-racist, or only anti-racist with an asterisk?
>>>>
>>>> Is AWARE's position "Nazi-schmatzi, who cares, as long as he's not a 
>>>> neo-liberal"?
>>>>
>>>> @%<
>>>>
>>>>> On Sep 18, 2013, at 8:23 AM, Stephen Francis <stephenf1113 at yahoo.com> 
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Just to remind everyone, The Midwest 9/11 Truth Conference is about 
>>>>> focusing on the evidence of the crime committed on 9/11 and not about 
>>>>> defending ourselves from attacks of anti-Semitism....and will be 
>>>>> conducted as such...
>>>
>
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