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

[C. G. Estabrook]

I suppose there is a connection - if a propagandistic one - between anti-Semitism and Obama's terrorism, given Israel's cooperation in the crimes of US imperial war:

Abba Eban, the Israeli diplomat and politician wrote 40 years ago, "One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all."

Members and friends of AWARE probably agree in opposing the racism of the state of Israel.


On Sep 20, 2013, at 8:37 PM, David Gehrig <david-cu at nukulele.org> wrote:

> Is that AWARE's circumscribed purpose now?
> 
> AWASIWDGASARA -- "All We Are Saying Is We Don't Give A Shit About Racism Anymore"?
> 
> @%<
> 
>> On Sep 20, 2013, at 7:37 PM, "C. G. Estabrook" <carl at newsfromneptune.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Anti-Semitism has almost nothing to do with the terrorism practiced by the Obama administration. 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Sep 20, 2013, at 6:58 PM, David Gehrig <david-cu at nukulele.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> These guys have a Constitutional right to she the world they're racist fools, and by golly they're going to use it. I do not and have not recommended anything even resembling "shut 'em down."
>>> 
>>> But the paucity of your moral imagination is noteworthy. Outside of trying to get them cancelled, which neither you not I want, is there really nothing AWARE is capable of doing when such a blatant example of antisemitism comes to town? As Horatio puts it when Osric's noble rhetoric bottoms out too soon: "his purse is empty already, all his golden words are spent."  Is AWARE's purse so easily emptied? Is AWARE's position on Holocaust denial really to shrug (in the Randian sense)? Is antisemitism simply the wrong kind of racism for AWARE to actively counter?
>>> 
>>> @%<
>>> 
>>>> On Sep 20, 2013, at 3:23 PM, "C. G. Estabrook" <carl at newsfromneptune.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 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 teni h. 
>>>>> I the 
>>>>> 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...
>>