No Surprises: Baucus-Braly-Blue Cross Bailout Advances to Final Act

Published on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

by Donna Smith

Whew. Saddle up, America. And say it three times, really fast: Baucus-Braly-Blue Cross Bailout, Baucus-Braly-Blue Cross Bailout, Baucus-Braly-Blue Cross Bailout.

Get ready for the next act in the intricate drama that has been unfolding under the guise of healthcare reform since last fall. Recalling those glorious chilled fall evenings of 2008 and the promise of a Presidential candidate who confidently and clearly proclaimed healthcare as a basic human right, observers of the quest to grant that right within the American system might wonder how such a welcome proclamation dissolved into a nation standing on the brink of making that right to healthcare more distant, less protected and far less secure for millions of its citizens.

Senator Max Baucus could explain. He receives the highest political contributions of any Democrat in Congress from the healthcare industry. Angela Braly of WellPoint could explain. As one of the most powerful women on earth (see Forbes' listing for the past few years of the top 100 and look among the top 10), she writes the provisions of the legislation Sen. Baucus offers to the nation. She protects the interests of Blue Cross and all other for-profit, private insurers very well indeed. And together with a few of their closest friends both in government and industry -- folks well place inside and out -- they'll be enriched many times over by the passage of reform legislation that leaves millions and millions of people with healthcare access problems and open to financial ruin.

It's all there: Take carefully scripted and timed objections by the insurance and healthcare industry giants, woefully long legislative pauses of dismay over costs or the terribly unacceptable option of inaction and lack of bipartisanship, and then punctuate it with Presidential moments of stoic determination. That's the stuff of political theatrics.

If only it were the stuff of the basic human right to healthcare, it might be a play we'd all have enjoyed watching.

What would make any American citizen watch the unfolding events and think many of these leaders -- oft cited as brilliant minds and superior intellects -- would allow any outcome in policy and law not in their own best interests to prevail? The plot is what they wrote it to be -- all the way down to the last minute objections to make it appear as though the health insurance industry doesn't really want to raise premiums and make even higher profits. The American people owe them all a very good living, don't we?

"The lady doth protest too much." Shakespeare wrote it a few centuries ago. Many have borrowed it. Braly and her pals have perfected it to an art form. And watch Congress act as though with its huge Democratic majority capable of passing real reform that they've been scared by the "teabaggers of August" or influenced by labor leaders on the left slamming their shoes on the table and objecting to weak reforms and taxation of benefits -- and now have muscled through all of that to give us insurance purchase mandates as reform.

So, watch and wonder no more America. The next few scenes will include all sorts of conflicts surrounding the details. Public option, robust or not. No matter. Amendments to add some teeth to the legislation. Sure enough. Taxation of benefits. No problem. House of Representatives stomps its feet. Of course. President steps in now and then to put his bigger than Congress' foot down. You betcha. And then on to the Rose Garden just before Christmas with all the players wrapped in holiday glow giving a gift to the American people. Maybe we can time the ceremony with the lighting of the White House Christmas tree and the placement of the Menorah. Bet we could all write the invitation list right now. And we're not on it.

Buy insurance (as an employee). Buy insurance (as an employer). Buy insurance in the private market. Buy insurance (as a taxpayer funding the subsidies). It's sort of like Jingle Bells, only a lot less fun. But that's the simple bottom line to this reform. Everyone buys the defective product or else. Sold to protect health and wealth, it does neither by law.

In the end, millions of us pay more for less coverage. Hundreds of thousands bury family members, children, neighbors, friends as they want for protection from preventable death. Millions are fined for failing to buy insurance. Financial services firms grow fatter and bolder collecting for medical providers. Millions more go bankrupt. America the beautiful continues to finish last and boldly so in measures of real health. Round and round we go.

Ten or so years down the road, the unsustainable and well-scripted healthcare reform plan crafted by team Baucus-Braly and all its supporting cast of characters will have to be redone. A gruesome sequel of sorts. I wonder if we'll have someone writing the new script that hears the cries of the people and actually acts on that suffering. Because the current cast will be long gone having claimed their victory and safely off counting their riches.

Donna Smith is a community organizer for the California Nurses Association and National Co-Chair for the Progressive Democrats of America Healthcare Not Warfare campaign.

Can We Win In Afghanistan And Would It Be Worth The Price?

By Timothy V. Gatto

09 October, 2009

Does anyone really think that a continued U.S. and NATO presence will actually achieve anything significant in Afghanistan? Will an additional 40,000 soldiers defeat the Taliban or will it only lead to more American deaths? It seems that a continued presence in that war-torn nation will only bring grief and death while U.S. and NATO troops continue to try and reign in the Taliban, which can only be compared to the debacle in Vietnam, where trying to track down the Viet Cong and the NVA could only be compared to trying to herd of cats.

I believe that General McCrystal believes that the Taliban can be defeated but at what cost? We have yet to see a plan that will accomplish this. The situation in that mountainous land where the Taliban appear, kill a few soldiers and damage military equipment and then disappear is shockingly reminiscent of the situation in Vietnam. Peak US strength in Vietnam in April, 1969 was 543.400. We lost that war. We also tried to win “The hearts and minds” of the people in that war and we never succeeded. Will we repeat the same behavior in Afghanistan and expect different results?

The war is in its eighth year and we are losing ground. The majority of Americans don’t support ramping up the war effort. We are in unprecedented times financially. The manufacturing base of the United States has been eroding for almost two decades. We have become a service economy; the only robust area of the manufacturing sector is oddly enough, the military weapons sector. Do our leaders expect this war will lead to a type of federal jobs program? Our military spending accounts for almost half of the military budget of the entire planet. We will spend just about a trillion dollars this year on our military. The defense industry is definitely not experiencing lean times.

The problem with military spending is that once the money is spent, there is no return on our investment. Military equipment has a bad habit of getting used up in short order and it isn’t usually recycled. When a tank or an airplane outlives its usefulness it goes on the scrap heap. Munitions are made to be destroyed. A cruise missile costs in the neighborhood of $569000. An F-18 costs $54.7 million. The unit cost of the Army's UH-60L Black Hawk is $5.9 million. The cost of a new M1A2 tank is approximately $4.3 million. War is an expensive business. Despite threatened cuts at the Pentagon, Boeing's military business--including f-15 Strike Eagles, Patriot and Harpoon missiles, Apache, Longbow and Chinook helicopters, P-8A Poseidon antisubmarine aircraft--is still in good shape. Last year it accounted for $32 billion, 53% of revenues, and $3.2 billion, or 82%, of operating profit. (Forbes September 2009). I could go on but I think I made my point.

While most of this article has been about hardware, the human element cannot be ignored. We lost 58,000 soldiers in Vietnam. It stands to reason that the more soldiers we send to Afghanistan, the more casualties we will suffer. The civilian deaths in Iraq have been calculated to be from 300,000 to 1.3 million depending on who is reporting. The U.S. military does not keep a tally. Besides civilian deaths and military combat deaths, depleted uranium exposure, PTSD, and crippling injuries add to U.S. casualties. Just like Agent Orange in Vietnam, the military refuses to acknowledge the harmful effects of DU, such incidents as birth defects and crippling bone loss. Let’s hear those comments saying depleted uranium is as safe as aspartame. We all know how safe that is. Since Rumsfeld pushed it through the FDA, citing flawed studies on monkeys in 1984 when he was President of Searle Pharmaceuticals, cancerous brain tumors increased by 800%, but that’s probably just a coincidence, right? We all know that our government only works in the peoples best interests.

Speaking of the American peoples best interests, ridding the Afghan nation of the Taliban means that we are fighting them over there so that we don’t have to fight them over here. It’s funny; I seem to have heard that phrase before. No matter, whatever. I also seem to remember that before we sent our military folks into Afghanistan, the Taliban offered Osama Bin Laden’s head up on a platter if we formally charged him with crimes. Somehow that never came to pass and now we are desperately fighting not only al Qaeda, in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the Taliban. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t these the very same Mujahedeen that we financed to fight Russia? Sure does get confusing, can’t tell the players from one another over there. Maybe we should provide them with uniforms so we could tell them apart.

Let me get everything straight so I don’t criticize the Obama Administration unfairly. The reason that we are trying to eliminate the Taliban is because they don’t treat women very well. I can understand that, they probably treat them as badly as the Saudi’s (our number two military aid recipient) treat their women. The Taliban also interfere with the Afghan government’s bribes and kickbacks for services and their blind eye towards opium production (90% of the planet’s supply). I also remember something about a proposed oil pipeline. Let me mention Pepe Escobar’s article from the Asia Times titled U.S. Growing Arc of Instability:

“Most of all, the underlying logic remains divide and rule. As for the divide, Beijing would call it, without a trace of irony, "splittist". Split up Iraq - blocking China's access to Iraqi oil. Split up Pakistan - with an independent Balochistan preventing China from accessing the strategic port of Gwadar there. Split up Afghanistan - with an independent Pashtunistan allowing the building of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline bypassing Russia.

Al Qaeda, since they are no longer funded by the CIA, is our #1 enemy. Osama Bin Laden would get a sovereign nation from which to launch their attacks on America and the rest of the “free” world if we send our troops home.

All of this confusion has me wondering, as I’m sure it gives President Obama pause also. I’m curious as to whether or not the U.S or any other NATO member state has attempted to negotiate with the Taliban since they offered up Bin Laden? The current leader of Afghanistan is no stranger to “”the art of the deal” In 1997, UNOCAL led an international consortium - Centgas - that reached a memorandum of understanding to build a $2 billion, 1,275-kilometer-long, 1.5-meter-wide natural-gas pipeline from Daulatabad in southern Turkmenistan to Karachi, via the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar, crossing into Pakistan near Quetta. A $600 million extension to India was also being considered. The dealings with the Taliban were facilitated by the Clinton administration and the ISI. But the civil war in Afghanistan would simply not go away. Unocal had to pull out. In this geo-strategic grand design, the Taliban were the proverbial fly in the ointment.

It would be in the best interests of all concerned to lay their cards out on the table. If I’m sensing things correctly, after a stalemate in Korea and a loss in Vietnam followed by a totally senseless war in Iraq, the American people are in no mood to bluff or be bluffed.

Tim Gatto is an Army veteran of almost 21 years. His new book, "From Complicity to Contempt" An American Writer and Veteran Speaks Out Against American Lies is available at most bookstores.

Deconstructing The Israeli Narrative

By Dan Lieberman

09 October, 2009

As Israel’s democratic posture becomes more questioned, its mystique becomes more exaggerated. In order to convince others of the validity of Israel’s actions, supporters focus on three components of Israel’s drive to an accomplished nation:

The significance of the Zionist mission,

Israel as a Jewish state, and

Israel not being responsible for the Palestinian displaced persons

All of these issues, which had roles in establishing the Israel state, are expressed with sweeping generalities, devoid of specifics and facts. Obfuscation, lack of clarity and an assumption that what is being related is correct often characterize discussions of these issues. No questions asked and nothing to explain.

Evidence contradicts the narratives that Israel’s supporters work diligently to create. Before constructing a base for Middle East peace, it is essential to deconstruct the spurious Israeli narratives.

The Zionist Mission

The Zionists portray themselves as a vanguard of Jewish thought and aspiration, leading the masses of Jewish people to freedom and fulfilling the promises denied to them by an adversarial world. History contradicts these portrayals, especially that of Zionism as a mass movement by the Jewish people. Zionist philosophy had little appeal to the Jewish people in the late 19th century.

“The first Zionist Congress (1887) was to have taken place in Munich, Germany. However, due to considerable opposition by the local community leadership, both Orthodox and Reform, it was decided to transfer the proceedings to Basle, Switzerland.

Reform Judaism in a series of proclamations, which culminated in the 1885 Pittsburgh Conference, rejected the Zionist program (Note: Overturned in 1999 by contemporary Reform Judaism):

"We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community; and we therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning a Jewish state."

The 19th century emancipation movements liberated West and Middle European Jews and permitted them to integrate into European society.

“Jews emerged as writers of secular literature, enriching English, French, and German literature with novels, short stories, poems, and essays. In Britain Benjamin Disraeli, who converted to Christianity, wrote popular novels before becoming prime minister. Heinrich Heine, who converted to Christianity in order to earn a law degree in Germany, became one of the best-loved German poets.”

The Zionist agenda evidently preferred Disraeli to remain Jewish and not become Britain’s Prime Minister. Jews rejected this agenda, which they perceived as prompting nations to question the loyalty of their Jewish citizens, as serving to impede their advances, and as reinforcing a race-baiting theory that Jews engaged in international conspiracies. Anti-Zionist Rabbis insisted: “Zion exists everywhere but in Zion.”

Examine the Russian Jews. They had significantly more problems than other European Jews. Nevertheless, they didn't consider Zionism as a relief for their difficulties. Between 1881 and 1914, 2.5 million Jews migrated from Russia—1.7 million to America, 500,000 to Western Europe, and almost 300,000 to other nations. Until 1914, only a mere 30,000 – 50,000 Russian Jews followed the Zionist call to Palestine and 15,000 of them eventually returned to Russia.

So, if not for Zionism, how did the Israel state arrive and swell into millions of inhabitants?

By 1914, Zionism had become a stagnant adventure. Somehow, and in some way, someone took advantage of the Allies victory in World War I to promote the Balfour Declaration, which approved “a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.” The League of Nations' certification of the British mandate in Palestine prevented the formation of a national Palestinian governing body and many English speaking European Jews came to work in the British administration Fly below the cloud of propaganda and rhetoric and the principal result of the original Zionist agenda is easily observed: People of uncertain circumstance (not dedicated Zionists) and favored by the Zionists have been transferred from their countries to a new land, while people of more certain circumstances and not favored by the Zionists have been displaced from their lands. The less favored have become refugees and, in many cases, been reduced to poverty.

The Jews who immigrated to Israel immediately after 1948 arrived for mainly economic and political reasons and not to fulfill a Zionist mission. Israel even claims the massive number of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East (Mizrahi) did not arrive voluntarily, but were forced out of their homes. Zionism has not persuaded a great number of Jews to leave their western nations, not deterred them from greatly participating in their nations' economic and social gains and not prevented them from integrating themselves into their nations' cultures. The Economist (Jan.11, 2007) mentions that only 17% of American Jews regard themselves as pro-Zionist and only 57% say that "caring about Israel is a very important part of being Jewish."

In the last decades, Russians from the former Soviet Union, most of whom preferred to migrate to the United States, have been the principal immigrants to Israel. Many of them are dubious Jews or lost their Jewish roots during the Communist era. Orthodox Jews, who came for religious reasons and not to join their secular compatriots in common pursuits, are the fastest growing segment of the Israeli Jewish population. Where they settle, the secular Jews tend to leave. More aligned with Rabbis preaching mystical nineteenth century philosophies, these orthodox Jews isolate themselves from their fellow Israelis and from worldwide Jewry.

The dubious Zionists created a dubious Jewish state.

The Jewish State

By what authority did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaim, “The Palestinians must recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people,” and “Jerusalem is the united capital of the State of Israel and the Jewish people?”

The Jewish people don’t have a central authority and no referendum of its 15 millions has been taken. PM Netanyahu might not care, but many Jews fear that their fellow citizens might one day ask: “You have a country, what are you doing here?” or suggest that Jews are more loyal to a foreign nation and are working for that nation.

It is difficult to characterize Israel as a Jewish nation. Avraham Burg, former Knesset speaker and former head of the Jewish Agency has been quoted as saying, "to define the State of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end." The term 'Jewish nation' has never been adequately defined and there is nothing exceptional in Israel that identifies a specific Jewish morality, culture or Judaic atmosphere

The cool and breezy manner in which the Israelis express the words ‘Jewish state’ intends to create a comfortable feeling; nothing hostile towards anyone, just a satisfactory note to Jewish citizens. Cause for alarm is abundant. Israel has no written constitution. Its laws discriminate against its minorities and separate its citizens.

(1) The entire Jewish population left Nazareth many years ago and established a new Nazareth. The new Nazareth receives substantial benefits from the government and has grown prosperous and modern. The old Arab Nazareth remains old.
(2) In Haifa, the Arab population lives by the sea. The Jewish population lives in the hills.

(3) Few Palestinians have been able to rent housing or buy property in West Jerusalem.

(4) In Acre, immigrant Jews are able to acquire property but are not allowed to sell the property to Arab citizens.

(5) Tel Aviv has contiguous populations but not mixed populations.

(6) Few, if any Arabs, have been able to purchase government sponsored housing.

(7) The separation of populations results in the separation of activities, recreation centers, schools and education

(8) Although some Arabs are able to obtain college scholarships, the large majority of college scholarships require previous military duty. Since Arabs are exempt from compulsory military service in the Israeli army, few Arabs obtain college scholarships.
(9) Arabs don’t obtain many housing loans.

(10) The state of Israel owns more than 90 percent of the land. Non-Jewish citizens cannot, except in rare occasions, purchase land.

(11) Whenever the Israeli army wants to construct a military base, Arab property is expropriated for the endeavor.

(12) Since marriages are performed by a rabbi, a Jew cannot marry a non-Jew within the boundaries of Israel.

Separation of ethnicities is most apparent in how Israel and most of the world differ in regarding nationality. It’s not just separation. It’s a de facto apartheid, which the words ‘Jewish state’ will tend to reinforce.

All Americans have both United States citizenship and nationality. Israelis have Israel

citizenship, but don't have an Israel nationality. Israel’s citizens have either Jewish, Arab, Druze, Samaritan, Circassian, Kara'ite or foreign nationality. Jewish nationals already have overwhelming preference in the Israeli state, Defining Israel as a Jewish state seems ominous; only an attempt to give some meaning to the preference, and reinforce it to an extent that being non-Jewish means you might as well leave

Add to the dangerous mix of laws, which favor the favored nationals, the declarations of Israel’s leaders. According to the Jewish Daily Forward, March 18, 2009, “Foreign Secretary Avigdor Lieberman was elected to the Knesset on a platform that would require a loyalty oath as a condition of Israeli citizenship. He has suggested transferring Israeli-Arab population centers to the control of a future Palestinian state.”

Israel today is a nation whose people have conditions, problems, purposes and values that are different from Jews around the world. The Israeli characteristics aren't derivatives of a three thousand year-old part urban and part tribal society - but are associated with a specific 21st century industrial society. The specifics create an Israeli identity that is not aligned with the identities of Jews in other nations. Israel is attempting to make all Jews into good Israelis and redefine the meaning of being Jewish. This includes being agreeable to Fundamentalist Christianity, which is not agreeable to world Jewry, but is Israel's best friend. Israel is strengthening a fervent antagonist of Jewish and progressive peoples.

Recall the conclusion of the King-Crane commission, which was appointed by President Wilson in 1919:

“...a national home for the Jewish people is not equivalent to making Palestine into a Jewish State; nor can the erection of such a Jewish State be accomplished without the gravest trespass upon the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's conference with Jewish representatives that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase.

In view of all these considerations, and with a deep sense of sympathy for the Jewish cause, the Commissioners feel bound to recommend that only a greatly reduced Zionist program be attempted by the Peace Conference, and even that, only very gradually initiated. This would have to mean that Jewish immigration should be definitely limited, and that the project for making Palestine distinctly a Jewish commonwealth should be given up.”

Israelis also make it seem that the route to the ‘Jewish state’ was a natural progression; disregarding their roles in creating the Palestinian displaced persons and the evictions of almost one million Palestinians from their lands.

The Displaced Persons

Israel did not permit Palestinians who left or were evicted during the 1948 and 1967 conflagrations to return to their homes and lands. Assets, businesses, property and household items were confiscated and the owners were not reimbursed. Israeli historian Benny Morris summarized the evictions well:

“I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy. I feel sympathy for the refugees themselves. But if the desire to establish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice. It was impossible to leave a large fifth column in the country. From the moment the Yishuv was attacked by the Palestinians and afterward by the Arab states, there was no choice but to expel the Palestinian population. To uproot it in the course of war.”

Benny Morris used the correct phrase: “… if the desire to establish a Jewish state here is legitimate…” It was not legitimate. The choice was not between “having a Jewish state and not dispossessing the Palestinians.” The choice was between “not having the expanded state that Israel gained” and “dispossessing the Palestinians.” Almost all the evicted Palestinians were in the territory granted to the Palestinians. Not since the days of American expansionism has a group of individuals (Israel was not even a declared nation when the confiscations began nor had Arab armies attacked at that time.) invaded another land, seized the territory and cleared the area of the indigenous people.

Can anyone believe that Israel is not directly responsible for the Palestinian exodus? Did these people voluntarily decide to leave their homes, face starvation, have entire families commit suicide because of their desperation or be willing to sit quietly in refugee camps? Are these verified reports of forced removals, terrorizing killings and destruction of more than 400 Palestinian villages only stories? Why were the villages destroyed? Why weren’t the villagers allowed to return? Why were vacant homes instantly occupied? In Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo and elsewhere, the western nations were firm in demanding prompt return of refugees and fought to achieve that demand. In other situations, refugees had been created, but wanton property and asset seizures were not a rule. In Palestine, Israel seized all properties and assets and allowed newly arrived foreigners to occupy vacant homes. No precedent for these illegal operations exists in the post World War II western civilized world. We have perpetrators telling victims; “Look it’s over, let’s forget it. You want restitution; it isn’t going to happen.”

Israel has revealed its nature; a nation built on actions normally termed war crimes by world institutions; a nation that does not follow international law; and a nation that does not heed United Nations Resolutions. Distracting and deceiving the world community with contrived and fallacious narratives permits Israel to continue its illegal maneuvers. Setting the record straight will straighten the road to Middle East peace.

Dan Lieberman is the editor of Alternative Insight, a monthly web based newsletter. Dan’s many articles on the Middle East conflict have circulated on websites and media throughout the world. He can be reached at alternativeinsight@earthlink.net

The Travails Of The Palestinian Authority While Palestine Vanishes

By Sonja Karkar

12 October, 2009
Australians For Palestine

The fallout from the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to endorse the Goldstone Report’s passage through the United Nations is not just painful for the Palestinians, but also for all those who support the Palestinian cause. This is yet another wound inflicted by the Authority on the Palestinian struggle for liberation from a long and brutal Israeli military occupation. And yet again, Israel gets a “get out of jail free” card as the Palestinians are forced to focus on their own inept and corrupt leadership.

The world was poised to call Israel to account for its war crimes in Gaza post-Christmas 2008. The Goldstone Report meticulously documents the evidence made all the more credible because its investigations were led by a distinguished Jewish South African judge with strong loyalties to Israel.

The tide had already been turning against Israel. Israel’s refusal to freeze settlement building in the West Bank as requested by US President Obama had exposed Israel’s obstructionist behaviour towards peace efforts. And, the boycott movement instigated by Palestinian civil society had some significant wins in recent times, so much so that Israel fears a South African-style anti-Apartheid sentiment taking hold. Any diversion now for Israel would have to be welcome.

While the Palestinian Authority (PA) is in damage control, Israel is carrying on business as usual to further decimate Palestinian society and no one says a word. Israel is continuing its takeover of Jerusalem and the West Bank and continues with its stranglehold on Gaza while bombing areas when and where it sees fit. In the morass of corruption, betrayal, intimidation and bravado, the weighty Goldstone Report has become a mere bagatelle likely to be buried with so many other lost opportunities to hold Israel to account.

Then again, the indomitable spirit of the Palestinian people should never be underestimated. They have held out against impossible odds for more than 60 years and there is no reason that some 4 million people cannot do so again, especially if Diaspora Palestinians worldwide can be spurred into action.

To date, too much reliance had been placed on a leadership and party that had succumbed to the machinations of realpolitik that served only Israeli and US interests. Running parallel though have been the very powerful nonviolent resistance and solidarity movements both at home and abroad that have been tireless in their efforts to champion the Palestinian cause. Had there been an effective leadership rather than the sycophantic excuse for one, Israel would have been battling sympathetic public opinion all too ready to get on board a Ghandi-esque liberation movement.

No matter how many PA ministers talk about misunderstandings and miscommunications, Abbas’ intentions were already clear at the summit meeting in New York when he made no mention of the Goldstone Report even as Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu railed against it. Abbas had a perfect opportunity to bring Israel’s war crimes to public attention then. That aside, there are the other damning claims of Abbas urging on the Israelis to bring Hamas down in Gaza during Israel’s offensive in January; the PA’s caving into Israel’s threats of ending a mobile phone bandwidth deal that would cost the PA $US300 million in fines; and the likely loss of lucrative investments in that deal by Abbas’ son and other members of the PA.

Any or all of these reasons are grounds for dissolution of the PA because Palestinian acquiescence was certainly needed to block the passage of the Goldstone Report through the United Nations. The hastily issued statements by PA members distancing themselves and the PA from Abbas’ decision not to endorse the report after massive public outrage, were too late to be credible. Palestinians had already been calling for a democratically elected, properly constituted Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) that would represent all of the people both within and outside Palestine as well as all the political parties and factions.

It is not as if the Palestinians lack honourable and intelligent people who would put the good of their society before Israeli and US interests. They simply have not been allowed to rally the people or to govern. Foreign interests have been interfering in the internal Palestinian political process ever since the First Intifada broke out in 1987 and captured the world’s attention with images of stone-throwing Palestinians against the Israeli military Goliath. Israel began sowing the seeds of discontent and division amongst the Palestinian factions while the US played the role of “honest” broker in dead-end peace talks. The Fatah-led PA was really an interim governing body with a life span of five years pending the establishment of a Palestinian state after the ill-fated Oslo peace plan was signed in 1993. That state never happened, but the PA has nevertheless lingered on under the Fatah banner as a pseudo-government policing its own people for Israel’s “security”.

When Hamas won the first democratically held elections in January 2006 under international supervision, Western interference surfaced openly through support for Israel’s punitive sanctions that deliberately isolated Hamas in Gaza, while Fatah, despite the election results, was given international legitimacy in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Not only was Abbas elected President, but the Western-backed economic guru Salam Fayyad was brought in and given the Prime Ministership and the ousted Fatah strongman from Gaza, Mohammad Dahlan became the Minister for Security working hand-in-glove with US General Dayton to run Israel’s security interests rather than safeguard the security of Palestinians.

This is the cosy arrangement we have today that has criminally allowed the further erosion of Palestinian rights, loss of land, discrimination, transfer, ethnic cleansing and the slow extermination of Palestinians in Gaza. The Goldstone Report would for the first time have put Israel in the spotlight whereby it would have provided the opportunity to hold Israel accountable for war crimes. Abbas’ collusion with Israel and the US was intended to scuttle the report; instead the report has merely given substantive weight to the already thousand or so war crimes charges that are being brought against Israeli ministers and generals around the world, and more are likely to be brought if there is no official reckoning.

The great tragedy of the political fallout today is not only that the Palestinian leadership has betrayed its own people, but that Israel continues its illegal colonial enterprise without barely an official protest as PA emissaries worry about their positions in case a total clean out of the PA and PLO demands their recall. This is the time when we should be hearing strong statements emanating from diplomatic missions that uphold the rights and interests of the Palestinian people.

If the Palestinians do not do something soon, the latest US attempts to restart peace negotiations will have the same actors negotiating without pre-conditions while Israel continues to thumb its nose at the whole world. Abbas’ call for a committee to investigate why he did not endorse the Goldstone Report is a ludicrous attempt to feign accountability when an honourable “sorry” would have at least have had some resonance. But the truth is that Abbas and those around him are simply too tainted to earn again the trust of their people. They are, after all, a reflection of the double-dealing Israeli and US administrations that have been leading the Palestinians into checkmate ever since their land was unjustly and immorally partitioned in 1947 and Israel was created six months later.

It is time for 10 million Palestinians worldwide to take the initiative and demand proper representation that will not kowtow to the US and Western governments for Israel’s benefit. Once the last vestiges of already compromised Palestinian land vanishes, so too will all talk of a sovereign and contiguous Palestinian state. The next dilemma will be what to do with a stateless Palestinian population. Will we then be looking the other way as Israel quickly moves to effect mass population transfer, ethnic cleansing and extermination? Will we too be just as culpable as the Palestinian leadership by doing and saying nothing?

It is on all our heads - we are witnessing the final stages of a vanishing Palestine and the extinguishment of its millennia-long history, heritage and society. This is the moment for a worldwide Palestinian liberation movement.

Sonja Karkar is the co-founder and co-convener of Australians for Palestine and founder and president of Women for Palestine in Melbourne, Australia. She is also the editor of the website www.australiansforpalestine.com and has had numerous articles published in online and printed journals and Australian newspapers. She can be reached at sonjakarkar@womenforpalestine.org

The Republicans And The Taliban: More Alike Than Rush Will Admit

By Mary Shaw

12 October, 2009

Just when ACORN needed a break from all the hysterical right-wing finger pointing, along came the perfect diversion: President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. And so a new feeding frenzy began.

Erick Erickson of Redstate.com wrote: "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Price had an affirmative action quota."

Glenn Beck chimed in with his usual kind of absurdity: "The Nobel Peace Prize should be turned down by Barack Obama and given to [...] the tea party goers and the 9-12 Project."

But the reaction that most caught my attention came from Republican Party chief Rush Limbaugh: "Folks, do you realize something has happened here that we all agree with the Taliban and Iran about and that is he doesn't deserve the award. Now that's hilarious, that I'm on the same side of something that the Taliban, and that we all are on the same side as the Taliban."

And Limbaugh's words led me to realize that the Republican Party of today has more in common with the Taliban than just a belief that Obama doesn't deserve the Nobel Prize. In fact, the two groups share more views than Limbaugh would probably want to admit.

For starters, the Republicans and the Taliban both think women need to be kept in their place. The Taliban do this by threatening women who would venture outside the home, and throwing acid on girls who dare to go to school. Fortunately, the Republicans don't have quite that much physical power over us, so they just make noise about it:

On "Good Morning America" in 2007, Glenn Beck showed his sexist colors during a rant about Hillary Clinton (who dares to pursue -- and achieve -- political power despite her gender): "She had that tone of voice, where she just sounds like [covers his ears]. I can't listen to it 'cause it sounds like -- it sounds like my wife saying, 'Take out the garbage.'" (Nice to see that he thinks so highly of his own wife.)

Ann Coulter, herself a woman, shared her views on the TV show "Politically Incorrect" in 2001: "I think [women] should [...] not [be allowed to] vote."

And, as a woman caller explained to Rush Limbaugh himself, on why he's unpopular with women: "The first time I listened to your show you were criticizing a liberal woman's blog, and at the end said something to the effect of, 'Well, at the end of the day she's a babe so it doesn't really matter anyways.'"

This was not at all surprising, given some of Limbaugh's other comments about women. One of my favorites: "Some of these babes, I'm telling you, like the sexual harassment crowd. They're out there protesting what they actually wish would happen to them sometimes."

Misogyny aside, the Republicans and the Taliban also share a desire for theocracy. The Taliban did so by instituting Sharia law. The Republican approach is slightly more subtle, via the increased influence of the Religious Right on our government and politics. And they cleverly have an alarming number of Americans convinced this was established as a "Christian nation", even though our Founding Fathers had quite the opposite intention. (See Thomas Jefferson's 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, in which Jefferson defends the concept of a "wall of separation between Church & State.")

Finally, the Republicans and the Taliban both want Obama to fail, and, by extension, want America to fail. For the Taliban, it's jihad. Coming from the Republicans, I would call it treason.

Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist, with a focus on politics, human rights, and social justice. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views appear regularly in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail: mary@maryshawonline.com

Understanding The Modern Usage Of “Peace” Is Such Phrases As The Nobel Peace Prize

By Case Wagenvoord

12 October, 2009

The Nobel committee awards Obama its peace prize and the reaction is a collective, “WTF!” The guy’s managing two wars and is getting ready to ramp up one war, spread it to another country, and the committee calls this peace?

Here again, Obama is benefiting from comparison with GWB. The Bush administration was to peace what Jack the Ripper was to feminism.

However, there’s another dynamic at work here. Compared to other winners, Obama is a milquetoast. He’s fallen far short of the body count amassed by previous winners, Woodrow Wilson and Henry Kissinger. (Tom Lehrer declared political satire dead the day they awarded Hank the prize.)

Much of the fuss over Obama being awarded the prize arises from a misunderstanding of what “peace” means. Its meaning has evolved over the years, and it has lost its touchy-feely quality. In its modern usage, it means much more than the absence of conflict and violence. In other words, today’s Nobel Peace Prize is not your great-grandfather’s Nobel Peace Prize.

By the dawning of the twentieth century, peace had come to mean industrial peace, i.e., market stability. If millions had to be slaughtered to attain this stability that was simply the price you paid. And the leader who slaughtered the most to attain this stability was the leader awarded the Peace Prize because he had facilitated a return to market stability.

By the twenty-first century, the definition of peace had taken another twist. It now meant corporate peace. Corporate peace is all about policy. It is the alignment of the world order with the goals and objectives of the reigning corporate power, in this case the United States.

The problem faced by the contemporary world is not rogue states; it’s rogue policies. Saddam’s sin was not his supposed links with al Qaeda; it was his decision to stop denominating oil sales in dollars. World pace depends on a faithful adherence to corporate policy. Saddam failed to follow policy. We couldn’t fire him, so we had to kill him and trash his country.

The Taliban failed to follow corporate policy by refusing to allow the Great White Power to run a pipeline across its real estate. So, we had to kick some ass to get the country into proper alignment with our corporate policies.

Under this definition, war is peace in the making, which is why a corporate leader engaged murder and mayhem in order to implement a corporate policy is indeed worthy of the prize.

If anything, the Nobel Committee is going soft.. They really should have waited a year or two until Obama had racked up a decent body count before awarding him the prize. I believe the minimum requirement is six figures.

But again, in vaudeville a mediocre act shines when it follows a terrible act.

In those years in which there is no major peace campaign in the hopper, the committee gives a nod to the touchy-feely by awarding the prize to Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu or Medecine Sans Frontieres.

But peace is its true calling.

Case Wagenvoord blogs at http://belacquajones.blogspot.com and welcomes comments at Wagenvoord@msn.com.

Obama’s Nobel Prize Statement At Odds With Reality

By Sherwood Ross

12 October, 2009

Can President Obama be serious when he says he accepts the Nobel Peace Prize as “an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people of all nations”?

Among “all nations” does he include the people of Iraq? Polls show folks there overwhelmingly want the U.S. to get out. Apparently, they didn’t care for their dose of “American leadership.” Does Obama’s “all nations” include Okinawa, which the U.S. has occupied for 64 years and refuses to leave?

Does “all nations” include Diego Garcia, whose inhabitants the U.S. forced from their island homes in the Indian Ocean, (as Time magazine has reported,) and whose dogs we gassed for good measure? (President Bush later used that base to attack Afghanistan, the better to dominate the oil-rich Middle East.)

Since he’s been in office only a short time, when Obama speaks of “an affirmation of American leadership” is he referring to the eight years of warmongering by his predecessor George W. Bush, who tore up every international treaty he could lay his hands on? In fact, global public opinion polls identified Bush as one of the most feared public figures on the planet. What kind of “leadership” is it when one UN member invades another based on lies and kills a million of its people, steals it blind, and shatters its economy? Calling that “leadership” is a bit wide of the mark.

Perhaps Obama is referring to the “leadership” of his friend Bill Clinton, who let half a million Iraqi children starve to death during his White House watch and who inaugurated the rendition kidnappings of men off the streets of foreign countries---men who were subsequently tortured and denied legal rights and representation?

“Leaders,” of course, are supposed to have followers. But a CNN poll September 15th found that 58 percent of Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan. That war is as illegal as the war in Iraq, yet President Obama is deliberating about whether to escalate it, not whether to end it.

Obama’s statement accepting the Nobel is as misleading as his remarks to the CIA last April 16th when he praised the Agency and hailed the U.S. as “a nation of laws” when today it is, in fact, the world’s principal law-breaker. The fact is, the charismatic new president appears to see the world through the dark glasses of the CIA and has aligned himself with the Agency’s imperialist agenda. Given Obama’s past employment, this is not that odd.

According to Wikipedia, upon graduating from Columbia University, Obama for a year “held a position as a research associate” in Business International Corp., a CIA front organization. The company is alleged to have kindly paid off Obama’s college loans for him. Obama worked in BIC’s financial services division, where he edited “Financing Foreign Operations,” a global reference service, and wrote for “Business International Money Report,” a weekly financial newsletter. According to an article in the October issue of Rock Creek Free Press, of Washington, D.C., reporter Wayne Madsen writes, “Through its contacts with leading liberals around the world, BIC sought to recruit those on the left as CIA agents and assets.” At any rate, the New York Times reported in 1977 that a BIC company official admitted providing “cover” for CIA employees.

The CIA, of course, has long been tied in with advancing the interests of the oil industry. Its Middle East station chief Kermit Roosevelt in 1953 stage-managed the overthrow of the democratic government of Iran after it nationalized its oil industry, as it had every right to do, especially when they were being cheated like mad.

As the CIA works largely under cover, many of its activities such as the torture in Iraq and Afghanistan prisons are concealed from public view. So Obama, as a former CIA asset, protects the Agency by not calling their alleged torturers to account, by withholding photographs of their nauseating handiwork, and by praising the bandits in public. One way to tell who really runs a country is to look to see which, if any, of its citizens are above the law. In America, those people are headquartered in Langley, Virginia.

(Sherwood Ross formerly reported for the Chicago Daily News, wire services, and national magazines. Reach him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com)

The System Let Obama Be President. But He Still May Not Be Able to Beat It

Published on Monday, October 12, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Even if he is pushing the US in the right direction, it is unlikely to be far or fast enough in a political culture resisting reform

by Gary Younge

At an election night party during the primaries last year I made a throwaway comment disparaging those who believed Barack Obama's mixed-race identity gave him a unique understanding of America's racial problems.

"It does," said one woman.

I explained that I was joking. She was not. "It really does," she continued. "He knows how black people think and he knows how white people think."

"If that's what it took then Tiger Woods [whose father is of African American, Chinese and Native American descent and mother is of Thai, Chinese and Dutch descent] should be president and Nelson Mandela should have stayed in the Transkei," I said.

"So why's he doing so well?" she asked. I suggested it was probably his stance on the war, the state of the economy and a desire to move on from the Clinton-Bush duopoly combined with his grassroots organising experience and use of new technology.

"There's more to it than that," she said. "It's him."

It is almost impossible to have an intelligent conversation about Obama. The problem isn't that people come to him with baggage. Everyone comes to everything in politics with baggage. It's that they refuse to check it in or even declare it. Any conversation about what he does rapidly morphs into one about who he is and what he might be.

In New Jersey more than a third of the conservatives literally think he might be the devil. A poll last month revealed 18% of the state's conservatives know he is the antichrist, while 17% are not sure. In Oslo, where he was last week awarded the Nobel peace prize, they think he might be Mother Teresa. A peace prize for a leader, nine months into his term, whose greatest foreign policy achievement to date is to wind down one war so he can escalate another, is bizarre to say the least.

Obama's particular biography, sudden rise and unflappable manner have certainly accentuated the contradictions between how different people understand his record. But the problem goes far wider than that. An obsession with celebrity, the cult of presidential personality and a culture of individualism (all of which long predated his election) have made understanding western politicians primarily within their political context a relative rarity.

We talk instead of "great men", who as Thomas Carlyle claimed, made history independent of the society and cultures that produced them. So tales of their moods, thought processes, psychological flaws and idiosyncratic genius become paramount. The emphasis shifts from policy to personality: their inability to trust, failure to lead or willingness to compromise become the questions of the day. The fate of the world lies not so much in their hands as in their gut and mind. Whether they take tablets or not sparks national conversation.

And so for all his individual talents, the fact that Obama is the product of a certain political moment and system, and therefore represents both its potential and its limits, is lost.

Nonetheless, the potential is not difficult to see. At home his election brought together a new coalition to transform the electoral landscape. He won the vote of 97% of black Americans, 67% of Latinos and white union members, 66% of those aged between 18 and 29 and 63% of Asian Americans. Black people voted in greater numbers by 14%, Latinos by 25% and young people aged between 18 and 29 by 25%. On his coattails came substantial Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress.

He is now turning out to be the most progressive president in 40 years. The agenda he has set out of raising taxes on the rich, reforming healthcare, withdrawing from Iraq, softening the sanctions on Cuba, and boosting the number of student grants marks a far bolder vision of what government is for than either Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter did.

Internationally, he remains incredibly popular, not least for who he is not – George Bush. A poll released last week revealing which country is most admired around the world showed America leaping from seventh to first. "What's really remarkable is that in all my years studying national reputation, I have never seen any country experience such a dramatic change in its standing as we see for the United States in 2009," explained Simon Anholt of the Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index. This is about as good a result as the left is going to get out of an American election.

But the limits are also all too apparent. Being the most progressive American president in more than a generation is not the same as being progressive. It's all relative. He has escalated the war in Afghanistan, continued rendition and maintained many of the most noxious presidential prerogatives that Bush claimed for himself.

The fact that Democrats have sufficient majorities in both houses of Congress to pass whatever they want but are struggling to pass anything that would make a decisive and conclusive break with the past suggests the problem in Washington is not "partisan politics". It's a political system and culture so crowded with corporate lobbyists, that it is apparently incapable of fulfilling the wishes of the people even when – as with a public option in healthcare – that is what they want.

The fact he is a product of that system does not mean he is not necessarily dedicated to reforming it. But we cannot measure his dedication, only his achievements. And so far those achievements have not been great.

Meanwhile, he has precious little to show for his global popularity. Nobody wants to increase troop levels in Afghanistan or take in Guantánamo Bay prisoners. By the time his climate change efforts emerge from Congress they are unlikely to impress the international community. "The problem is he's asking for roughly the same things Bush asked for and Bush didn't get them, not because he was a boorish diplomat or a cowboy," Peter Feaver, a former adviser to Bush, told the New York Times recently. "If that were the case, bringing in the sophisticated, urbane President Obama would have solved the problem. Bush didn't get them because these countries had good reasons for not giving them." That's not quite true. He is asking for less and prepared to give more. But the fact remains that he wants similar things and his concessions seem insufficient.

Put simply, he doesn't seem to have the numbers to implement change on a scale necessary to relieve the pain of people and the planet. This risks great cynicism and even the possibility of a backlash. People will say we reached out and nobody reached back; we tried to reform healthcare but nothing much changed. Predicting these disappointments, from the left, has taken no great insight. Given his own politics and the range of institutions in which he is embedded, the limits have always been clear. It is the potential for overcoming them that has been an open question.

This should neither absolve Obama of his responsibilities nor ignore his considerable abilities, but simply place meaningful criticism of him here on Earth – as opposed to in heaven or hell. The fact that he is pushing the country in the right direction does not mean he is able to push it fast or far enough.

It seems the world may need more for its future health and wellbeing than what US politics can produce right now. His best may just not be good enough.

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

Gary Younge is a feature writer and columnist for the Guardian based in the US

A Columbus Day Meditation - As Nobel Laureate Obama Decides Whether to 'Conquer' Afghanistan...

Published on Monday, October 12, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

by Thom Hartmann

"Gold is most excellent; gold constitutes treasure; and he who has it does all he wants in the world, and can even lift souls up to Paradise." -- Christopher Columbus, 1503 letter to the king and queen of Spain.

"Christopher Columbus not only opened the door to a New World, but also set an example for us all by showing what monumental feats can be accomplished through perseverance and faith." -- George H.W. Bush, 1989 speech

If you fly over the country of Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, the island on which Columbus landed, it looks like somebody took a blowtorch and burned away anything green. Even the ocean around the port capital of Port au Prince is choked for miles with the brown of human sewage and eroded topsoil. From the air, it looks like a lava flow spilling out into the sea.

The history of this small island is, in many ways, a microcosm for what's happening in the whole world.

When Columbus first landed on Hispaniola in 1492, virtually the entire island was covered by lush forest. The Taino "Indians" who lived there had an apparently idyllic life prior to Columbus, from the reports left to us by literate members of Columbus's crew such as Miguel Cuneo.

When Columbus and his crew arrived on their second visit to Hispaniola, however, they took captive about two thousand local villagers who had come out to greet them. Cuneo wrote: "When our caravels... where to leave for Spain, we gathered...one thousand six hundred male and female persons of those Indians, and these we embarked in our caravels on February 17, 1495...For those who remained, we let it be known (to the Spaniards who manned the island's fort) in the vicinity that anyone who wanted to take some of them could do so, to the amount desired, which was done."

Cuneo further notes that he himself took a beautiful teenage Carib girl as his personal slave, a gift from Columbus himself, but that when he attempted to have sex with her, she "resisted with all her strength." So, in his own words, he "thrashed her mercilessly and raped her."

While Columbus once referred to the Taino Indians as cannibals, a story made up by Columbus -- which is to this day still taught in some US schools -- to help justify his slaughter and enslavement of these people. He wrote to the Spanish monarchs in 1493: "It is possible, with the name of the Holy Trinity, to sell all the slaves which it is possible to sell...Here there are so many of these slaves, and also brazilwood, that although they are living things they are as good as gold..."

Columbus and his men also used the Taino as sex slaves: it was a common reward for Columbus' men for him to present them with local women to rape. As he began exporting Taino as slaves to other parts of the world, the sex-slave trade became an important part of the business, as Columbus wrote to a friend in 1500: "A hundred castellanoes (a Spanish coin) are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten (years old) are now in demand."

However, the Taino turned out not to be particularly good workers in the plantations that the Spaniards and later the French established on Hispaniola: they resented their lands and children being taken, and attempted to fight back against the invaders. Since the Taino where obviously standing in the way of Spain's progress, Columbus sought to impose discipline on them. For even a minor offense, an Indian's nose or ear was cut off, se he could go back to his village to impress the people with the brutality the Spanish were capable of. Columbus attacked them with dogs, skewered them with pikes, and shot them.

Eventually, life for the Taino became so unbearable that, as Pedro de Cordoba wrote to King Ferdinand in a 1517 letter, "As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they endured, the Indians choose and have chosen suicide. Occasionally a hundred have committed mass suicide. The women, exhausted by labor, have shunned conception and childbirth... Many, when pregnant, have taken something to abort and have aborted. Others after delivery have killed their children with their own hands, so as not to leave them in such oppressive slavery."

Eventually, Columbus and later his brother Bartholomew Columbus who he left in charge of the island, simply resorted to wiping out the Taino altogether. Prior to Columbus' arrival, some scholars place the population of Haiti/Hispaniola (now at 16 million) at around 1.5 to 3 million people. By 1496, it was down to 1.1 million, according to a census done by Bartholomew Columbus. By 1516, the indigenous population was 12,000, and according to Las Casas (who were there) by 1542 fewer than 200 natives were alive. By 1555, every single one was dead.

This wasn't just the story of Hispaniola; the same has been done to indigenous peoples worldwide. Slavery, apartheid, and the entire concept of conservative Darwinian Economics, have been used to justify continued suffering by masses of human beings.

Dr. Jack Forbes, Professor of Native American Studies at the University of California at Davis and author of the brilliant book "Columbus and Other Cannibals," uses the Native American word wétiko (pronounced WET-ee-ko) to describe the collection of beliefs that would produce behavior like that of Columbus. Wétiko literally means "cannibal," and Forbes uses it quite intentionally to describe these standards of culture: we "eat" (consume) other humans by destroying them, destroying their lands, taking their natural resources, and consuming their life-force by enslaving them either physically or economically. The story of Columbus and the Taino is just one example.

We live in a culture that includes the principle that if somebody else has something we need, and they won't give it to us, and we have the means to kill them to get it, it's not unreasonable to go get it, using whatever force we need to.

In the United States, the first "Indian war" in New England was the "Pequot War of 1636," in which colonists surrounded the largest of the Pequot villages, set it afire as the sun began to rise, and then performed their duty: they shot everybody -- men, women, children, and the elderly -- who tried to escape. As Puritan colonist William Bradford described the scene: "It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they [the colonists] gave praise therof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully..."

The Narragansetts, up to that point "friends" of the colonists, were so shocked by this example of European-style warfare that they refused further alliances with the whites. Captain John Underhill ridiculed the Narragansetts for their unwillingness to engage in genocide, saying Narragansett wars with other tribes were "more for pastime, than to conquer and subdue enemies."

In that, Underhill was correct: the Narragansett form of war, like that of most indigenous Older Culture peoples, and almost all Native American tribes, does not have extermination of the opponent as a goal. After all, neighbors are necessary to trade with, to maintain a strong gene pool through intermarriage, and to insure cultural diversity. Most tribes wouldn't even want the lands of others, because they would have concerns about violating or entering the sacred or spirit-filled areas of the other tribes. Even the killing of "enemies" is not most often the goal of tribal "wars": It's most often to fight to some pre-determined measure of "victory" such as seizing a staff, crossing a particular line, or the first wounding or surrender of the opponent.

This wétiko type of theft and warfare is practiced daily by farmers and ranchers worldwide against wolves, coyotes, insects, animals and trees of the rainforest; and against indigenous tribes living in the jungles and rainforests. It is our way of life. It comes out of our foundational cultural notions.

So it should not surprise us that with the doubling of the world's population over the past 37 years has come an explosion of violence and brutality, and as the United States runs low on oil, we are now fighting wars in oil-rich parts of the world and pipeline-necessary Afghanistan. It shouldn't surprise us that generals want more troops (remember psychologist Abraham Maslow's famous dictum: "When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail"); the rich want more tax cuts; and multi-millionaire health "insurance" cartel leaders give millions to politicians to ensure single-payer never passes, leaving the average person in the iron grip of the very rich.

These are all dimensions, after all, of our history of patriarchy, hierarchy, and slavery, which we celebrate on Columbus Day. But if we wake up, and we help the world wake up, they need not be our future.

Let's hope that President Obama brings the wisdom and intellect he has so often displayed to all of these issues, particularly (on this day) the ones that can bring about or further disrupt peace in this world.

Excerpted and slightly edited from "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late," a book by Thom Hartmann which helped inspire Leonardo DiCaprio's new movie The 11th Hour. Hartmann's most recent book is Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture.