We should quickly change our Middle East foreign policy

 

It would certainly help the American Muslim community if the United States ended its cozy relationship with every rotten, undemocratic, theocratic, decadent royalist regime in the Middle East. Also, too many of our political leaders slobber over Zionist Israel.

What is democratic about this self-absorbed, self-righteous, JEWISH state? When did ordinary Americans ever decide that we have a special ,sentimental, extremely indulgent, relationship with Israel? We must pressure Israel to disarm its own nuclear weapons.

And Democrats should just walk out when the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, speaks to the Congress in early March. He was invited here by the Republican fans of Ayn Rand- herself a rabid atheist- Zionist who thought the Palestinians were inferior human beings. I'll bet President Obama is furious with Netanyahu.

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com, letter@globe.com, letters@usatoday.com

No, Uncle Sam isn't Charlie. How about Orwell's Big Brother?

 

I think too many journalists in the so called capitalist democracies have deluded themselves about the ideal of FREE SPEECH in these societies. May I recommend leftist professor Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States" for a more sober perspective on all civil liberties here?

Wikipedia link to Zinn's book

Was the McCarthy era paranoia all about FREE SPEECH rights even for moderately liberal scholars or political activists? It is well documented how a leftist party with which I was a presidential elector in 1980, The Socialist Workers Party, was harassed, sabotaged, and illegally spied on. The SWP did finally win its lawsuit against the FBI. But the damage was done.

Presently numerous activists who protested Bush's criminal war in Iraq and Afghanistan have their own tales of persecution to tell. And Talk Radio in America is particularly odious for its 24 hour right wing thug view of the world. They always rant about creeping socialism. But they would also silence any intellectually honest-and courageous-militant socialists.

Yes, if they could, the American FBI would love to obliterate my comments here rather than defend to the death my right to say this.

The talk of FREE SPEECH is mostly cant. When the ruling class does not like it they call it HATE SPEECH or just un-American and subversive and unpatriotic.

Even the famous Ralph Nader- now associated with the Green Party–can barely get a fair hearing in the capitalist news media.

And I must point out that too many individuals -even conservative types-have lost their jobs just over something they said.

As Professor Zinn pointed out, free speech is very problematic here. After suggesting that our Memorial Days just might glorify war more than they honor our war dead, he lost his column in a major newspaper. So much for FREE SPEECH in America!

And with the president of Israel coming to America to address the Congress, can anybody here criticize Israel's war crimes against the Palestinians without being branded anti-Semitic?

And so I hear: "Karl Marx was a self-hating Jew!

Forget about democratic DIALOGUE in the United States. Uncle Sam isn't Charlie. He is Orwell's Big Brother!

( published in Le Point ( France ) on Jan. 12, 2015 by Michel Colomes:"Obama Isn't Charlie", WATCHING AMERICA)

A truly Orwellian paradox

I am presently staring at today's Providence Journal front page -pondering a truly Orwellian paradox: "After attacks, crackdown on hate speech" (Jan.15)

And it seems that pure HATE can be combated by the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, on its way to terrorize not the fanatical few but the religious many in an Islamic country. But just days ago there was a multitude of people in Paris crying out that free speech is ABSOLUTE.

 

But the good Pope Francis disagrees. Don't insult MY mother! Well I am certainly not holier than the Pope. But I would dismiss any insult to my dear departed mother as being simply uninformed. At least I thought she was a peach.

Does he also mean: "Don't insult Holy Mother Church"? In the good old days there was the not so Holy Inquisition. But the Church has finally repented  of this extravagant solicitude for the Faith. As the late radical professor Howard Zinn said, this FREE SPEECH is very enigmatic in the most democratic countries on earth.

To: letters@providencejournal.com

But Charlie Hebdo was indeed Islamophobic trash, John

Link to Charlie Hebdo Magazine

John, I did do a background check on this cynical and nihilistic Charlie Hebdo magazine group in France. They did not belong to any great journalistic tradition, falling below American junk news tabloids in standards of accuracy and decency.

One comment rings true for this socialist- not interested in maliciously offending one fourth of the human population: "Charlie Hebdo wrote and drew about many issues but lost many readers over recent years because of its Islamophobia and racist content."

All the socialists with whom I associate completely reject terrorism as a sane political strategy. But we won't idealize these hateful New Atheist types, on the left or on the right.

And a lot of phony cant phrases in that huge demonstration in Paris. "Free Speech?" As American historian Howard Zinn points out in his "People's History of the United States," capitalist ownership of the news media tends to smother the free speech of ordinary people and nearly all third parties. I should know. I was a presidential elector for the Socialist Workers Party here in Rhode Island in 1980 and 1976. And a presidential elector for the American Communist Party way back in 1972.

Red Eye Radio is always unmasking sinister socialist plots-hatched even in the White House! But they never let any socialists speak for themselves.

Ron Ruggieri, Cranston

To: John DePetro <john@630wpro.com>