[Peace-discuss] Fwd: October 2017 Harper's article: Crime and Punishment

Tue Sep 19 22:32:14 UTC 2017

The October 2017 Harper's article "Will the 9/11 Case Finally Go to Trial?, by Andrew Cockburn reported that Sharron Premoli, a 9/11 survivor injured in the North Tower and one of the 6500 plaintiffs against Saudi Arabia, said. "We started a war because of 9/11--more than one war--and the wars are still going on.  Every war we start now, we say it's because of 9/11.  They keep fighting the 'war on terror,' but we are giving the Saudis a pass, despite all the evidence."  Cockburn says there has always been evidence--in abundance.  The Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attack began work in February 2002 under the leadership of former Senator Bob Graham, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, who has been active even since he retired from the Senate in 2005. 

With low oil revenues and the effect on Saudi Aramco stock prices, the war in Yemen dragging on at a cost of $200 million a day, the Sauds are afraid of a default judgment against them and some of their assets will be seized, curtailing their bellicose plans, said Premoli.  "That is precisely the goal," she said.  As the suit drags on into some 12 years, the Saudi expenditure on lobbyists and attorneys in Washington mounts, adding to the expense into a possible hundreds of billions.  The lawyers for the plaintiffs are committed in spite of obstacles put in their way by the Bush and Obama administrations and FBI and CIA.  

Back in 2002 Senator Bob Graham himself was already coming to the conclusion that the 9/11 attacks must have had an elaborate support network, abroad and in the U.S.A.  As he later wrote, "I believed almost intuitively that the terrorists who pulled off the attacks could not have been the work of a stand-alone terrorist cell.  In reality, the Obama Administration was well aware that Saudi Arabia was a supporter of terrorism, though it kept the information to itself.  Only through WikiLeaks did we learn of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's classified cable, circulated to department officials in December 2009 stating as fact that "donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide."  On this side of the Middle East, the CIA and FBI were complicit in not revealing what they knew about the 9/11 attackers..

A successful conclusion of the lawsuit for the plaintiffs could strike a more powerful blow for peace and withdrawal of Saudi support for Middle East wars than organized protests against Saudi Arabia!.

The entire article at Harper's.org is worth a read.

Midge O'Brien

-----Original Message-----
From: Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
To: Mildred O'brien <moboct1 at aim.com>
Sent: Mon, Sep 18, 2017 11:35 am
Subject: Re: Breaking News from NPR: The VietNam War is Starting This Week!

‘Intersectionality’ is a weasel-word that tries to make up for the abandonment of class politics.

Class (an objective reality) is turned into ‘classism’ - like racism and sexism, a matter of subjective identity.

Then discrimination against all three identities (and others) can be seen as ‘intersecting’ and can be equally opposed. 

All three Cockburn brothers have done remarkable work over the years. Alex requiescat in pace. —CGE

On Sep 18, 2017, at 11:13 AM, Mildred O'brien <moboct1 at aim.com> wrote:

OH, NO!  NOT AGAIN!  

Thanks for this clarification, Carl; I'm learning more and more about jargon like "political identity" and "intersectionality" (which I share with your disdain: "that opiate of the professional class").

I want to point out Andrew Cockburn's latest report (I read his jaw-dropping initial one about 10 years ago on the topic of 9/11 & Saudi Arabia) in the Oct issue of Harper's which interests me a great deal.  A lot of skeletons in the closet.

Midge

-----Original Message-----
From: Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
To: Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com>
Cc: peace-discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>; C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Mon, Sep 18, 2017 9:13 am
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] P. Street on "Race v. Class? More Brilliant Bourgeois Bullshit from Ta-Nehesi Coates"

I assume you mean Coates (a friend of my wife’s), not Street (who's spoken here several times). Neither would agree with all the quotes I pulled from their articles. I do think the Great Refusal (pace Dante) of American liberals - under the assault of neoliberalism - has been to choose to ignore economic exploitation, and substitute social discrimination (on race, gender, etc.) as the explanation for increasing (and accelerating) inequality over the last 40 years. (American wages have been flat since 1973.) But class position is objective (you’re a member whether you know it or not) while identity is chosen - as Coates and Chelsea Manning show. "The defensible heart of identity politics is its commitment to opposing forms of discrimination like racism, sexism, and homophobia. I share that commitment. But opposing discrimination today has no more to do with a left politics than do equally powerful ethical commitments against, say, violence or dishonesty. Why? Because the core of a left politics is its critique of and resistance to capitalism — its commitment to decommodifying education, health care, and housing, and creating a more economically equal society. Neither hostility to discrimination nor the accompanying enthusiasm for diversity makes the slightest contribution to accomplishing any of those goals. Just the opposite, in fact. They function instead to provide inequality with a meritocratic justification: If everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed, there’s no injustice when some people fail... "Discrimination is neoliberalism’s theory of inequality. Even poor whites have started to buy it — a large number appear to think anti-white bias is their real problem! Obviously, they’re wrong, but when, as Barbara and Karen Fields point out, the language of victimization has become so impoverished that it consists of nothing but discrimination, you go with what you’ve got. A new left politics will need to change that. Instead of a more complicated understanding of identity — of race, sex, and intersectionality (that opiate of the professional managerial class) — we need a more profound understanding of exploitation.” [W. B. Michaels] —CGE > On Sep 18, 2017, at 7:07 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > I have to admit the first time I heard him speak, I cried. He really knows how to pull the heartstrings, though, sometimes, it doesn’t take much to make me cry. > > The second time I heard him speak, I was irritated at his lack of solutions and obvious manipulation. > > Since then reading his words has angered me because he is so transparent in his attempts to promote racism, and guilt, with a “just suck it up, thats the way it is attitude,” > > When they ignore class, you know it’s another distraction from that which needs to be understood if we are to bring any change or progress to the world. > > When they focus on the personal, with no concern for the millions we have murdered……… > > >> On Sep 17, 2017, at 18:34, bjornsona--- via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: >> >> Agreed. Have never found Ta-Nahesi Coates at all interesting. >> Sent from my LG Phoenix 2, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone >> ------ Original message------From: C G Estabrook via Peace-discussDate: Sun, Sep 17, 2017 1:14 PMTo: peace-discuss at anti-war.net;Cc: Subject:[Peace-discuss] P. Street on "Race v. Class? More Brilliant Bourgeois Bullshit from Ta-Nehesi Coates"_______________________________________________ >> Peace-discuss mailing list >> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >> https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.chambana.net%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fpeace-discuss&data=02%7C01%7Ckarenaram%40hotmail.com%7Cbf22e39d73f2429928c908d4fe3575a2%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636412952934261624&sdata=hUQdlO88TIhfsz4uIqSSgs9NC%2FfYbpOv2M1hiz4%2FlYY%3D&reserved=0 > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss

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