The United States government is violating a group of US citizens' civil rights and it has to stop. They want to throw a whole ethnic group out of their homes, and restrict where they can or can't live. Sounds racist doesn't it? The White House, State Department and other agencies, right under the noses of us all, without a peep by us, are pursuing a deliberate policy of ethnic/religious "cleansing". They haven't started for real yet, but the plans are in the making. Who could possibly stand for this discriminatory behavior on the part of the American government against its own citizens in the year 2005? A class action suit demanding an injunction to stop these law-breaking plans needs to be filed in the courts.

No, I'm not talking about African-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders or some small, exotic, unknown tribe from who knows where. I'm talking about a group estimated to encompass at least 8-30,000 people, whose members are known to all Americans. I'm talking about a group who's been persecuted and discriminated against throughout written history. It's a group who thought they found refuge in the US, and became good, law abiding citizens, only now to find themselves being treated differently than other American citizens. Their homes are in jeopardy, their livelihoods are threatened, and their way of life is under siege. We must demand that the US government cease and desist in this discriminatory behavior. We must demand that the government put an end to violating their civil rights and sue for redress in the courts.

I'm talking about discrimination against American Jews, who once again are being told where they may or may not live, this time by the American government.

In the darkest days of Czarist Russia, Jews were told where they couldn't live. They were restricted to the "Pale of Settlement", to the west of Moscow and Petersburg. Most European cities until modern times segregated Jews into "ghettos". Earlier in European history they were thrown out of county after country, in the most brutal way. Muslim society in North Africa and the Middle East was no better, introducing distinctive clothing (the equivalent of the Nazi's Yellow Star) by Islamic Dhimmi law, from the 7th century onward and restricting Jews to certain "quarters" of the city. And now in the 21st century, in the name of "Peace," Jews are being told that they will have to leave their homes or be forced out. Such a blatant violation of civil rights must be resisted by all Americans. Not to protect the Jews, but to protect themselves.

There exists in American law the concept of the "Right of Eminent Domain". Simply put, if a governmental body, whether federal, state or local wanted to build a highway through an existing neighborhood, and people would need to be moved out of their homes to accomplish that public good, the government has the right to force people to relocate. Of course there would be zoning committee meetings, a judicial process of appeal, and ultimately if decided to proceed with the building, the payment of compensation. But if only the white people, or only the black people, or only the purple people were told they must move...well you get the idea.

That's exactly what's taking place right now. It's not Puerto Ricans or Koreans being told, "You can't live there". It's not Women or Men being told, "You can't join our club". All civil rights violations I might add. But, only American Jews are being told - by the American government - that they will have to leave their communities, their homes, schools, business, and farms in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza; American Arabs aren't being told that.

That's a civil rights violation, pure and simple.

You might say, that it will be the Israeli government that might expel people and not the American government, and that's partially true. But the American government with its involvement in the "Peace Process," through the Quartet (US, EU, UN and Russia), the Road Map, and it's support for the Sharon government's "disengagement" plan from Gaza and Northern Samaria, calling for the dismantling of "settlements" (i.e. Jewish cities, towns, and villages), and the transfer of Jews, including American Jews to another place, has been caught red handed, with its fingers in the cookie jar!

The American CIA is being used to monitor the implementation of the "Road Map". There is a "Special Operations Committee," whose main purpose is to see that "settlement" activity is "frozen" and "outposts" are "evacuated," i.e. expel Jews, including American Jews from their homes. When the former US Secretary of State, Collin Powell spoke at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference last year and blankly stated, "Settlement activity is simply inconsistent with President Bush's two-state vision," quoting Bush's statement that, "as progress is made toward peace, settlement activity in the Occupied Territories must end," the American government was annunciating it's illegal and discriminatory policy, and they've continued ever since.

Two different private "peace" initiatives have been circulating around as well...

The first, the Nusseibeh-Ayalon document, called "the People Vote" is a petition that Israeli Adm. and former head of the General Security Service (Israel's F.B.I.) Ami Ayalon and Palestinian professor Sari Nusseibeh have circulated. It calls on Israel to give up all the territory the Arabs lost in the 1967 Middle East war and turn the land over to the Palestinians for a state. It assumes that all the Jewish "settlers" will be ethnically cleansed from "Palestine".

When US Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, met with Ayalon and Nusseibeh, praising their efforts as, "a significant grass-roots movement," the American government was pursuing a policy that will lead to civil rights violations.

Then there was Powell's meeting with former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and former Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, after their PR inspired "Geneva Accord" signing ceremony was held in Switzerland last year. The "Geneva Accord" also came up with a plan for a Palestinian state on nearly all of the West Bank and Gaza, with most Jewish "settlers" being uprooted.

The then Secretary of State, Colin Powell, responded just before the signing ceremony held in Switzerland with an encouraging letter to Beilin and Rabbo. "Dear Yossi and Yasser," Powell wrote, "The US remains committed to the president's two-state vision and to the road map, but we also believe that projects such as yours are important in helping sustain an atmosphere of hope."

And now, the American government is again encouraging a process that will impact negatively on Jewish American citizens. They are continuing to carry out such a discriminatory policy, with their support for Sharon's "Gaza Expulsion Plan". Bush and company aren't calling on Arab Americans living in Gaza to leave, only working to force American Jews out. American officials need to be careful not to be discriminatory in their behavior.

You see, making plans, pursuing a policy, and calling for the expulsion of American Jews - and not - American Arabs or non-Jewish American citizens married to "Palestinian" Arabs from some area, whether its Hebron, Illinois, or Hebron on the West Bank, is a discriminatory policy, that violates the Jews' civil rights protections, and is patently illegal!

You might try to tell me, that civil rights protections are for what goes on inside the United States only. Well think through this one. Two American citizens who are living overseas, in Paris, Tahiti, or where ever; go to their local American Consulate or Embassy, requesting IRS tax forms, to update their passport, to register a birth of a child, or any other standard service. They request the identical service. The white guy gets processed quickly without any problems. The black guy is hassled. He's told to come back tomorrow, and that he needs to bring other types of documentation, etc. He decides that he's being treated differently than the white guy. He feels he hasn't been given the same type of consular services because he's black. He screams racial discrimination, calls his stateside attorney, and sues the United States government for civil rights violations.

How many of you don't think that he might get somewhere in court?

Of course civil rights protections extend overseas. Of course American government agencies and their agents must follow American laws when dealing with American citizens overseas. Of course American government policy can't discriminate between different groups because of ethnic, racial, religious, or gender differences, overseas.

All decent and fair-minded Americans must demand the US government stop pursuing this discriminatory policy. Write to your Congressman, Senator, the President, the media, and tell them so.

The US State Department issues travel advisories for troubled areas, and it occasionally calls on its citizens to leave an area temporarily that it deems dangerous, but it never implements any policy to force American citizens to leave an area or country. Either it must call on all American citizens, Jew and non-Jew, to leave the "West Bank" and Gaza, but do nothing to encourage them to be forced out - i.e. using the CIA; or simply trash this discriminatory policy just like racial segregation was trashed stateside, in the 1950's and 60's.

Jews have a right to live anywhere they want in America. We wouldn't accept anything less today. Not for Blacks, not for Hispanics, and not for Jews. Why accept such blatant segregation of Americans, just because they're Jews and not Arabs. "Palestinian" Americans aren't being told by the US government to leave, their communities aren't in danger, and their livelihoods aren't being threatened. The same equality of treatment should go for American Jews too.

The US government is breaking its own laws, in violating the civil rights of some of its citizens, overseas. It must be stopped through the courts or the ballot box.

Where will it happen next, Paris and Tahiti, or New York, Texas and California?

Any ideas, suggestions, or offers to help work on this issue can be directed to Ariel Natan Pasko at: ariel7@lobbyist.com or, Shmuel Neumann at: yeshahomestead@hotpop.com (re: class action suit).



Ariel Natan Pasko is an independent analyst & consultant. He has a Master's Degree in International Relations & Policy Analysis. His articles appear regularly on numerous news/views and think-tank websites, in newspapers, and can be read at:

www.geocities.com/ariel_natan_pasko

(c) 2004/5765 Pasko

READ AT:

http://www.jewishindy.com/article.php?sid=4185

http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_6204.shtml

They are being kicked out of land they stole from Arabs. Sounds like a great idea.

You mean that miserable terror cult in Palestine that America supports with all the genocidal tax supported weapons they need to crush the rightful occupants?

Hell, it's funny to watch the resident socialist around here complain about the theft of property and such when, after all, that's a major plank of the socialist and communist platforms. They're all about "stealing land" and property from those who have it and placing it in control of those elites who happen to run the state. For anyone to take these clowns seriously, they'd have a serious logical dilemma trying to rationalize the utter hypocrisy of these vehement leftists.........

Like the theft of our national forests for private profit.

Get a grip on reality. There's plenty of trees out there to go around. And it's not that hard to plant more if we run low. You're comment is hardly worthy of response.

Hypocrite. You just want resources for the wealth ripped off from the public to be sold for private gain. Plenty of trees. Right. That's why the lumber companys are harvesting the last of the old growth forests in their 'sustainable' clear cut. Don't get me started about mountain top removal.

My apathetic a-hole bleeds for your cause.... I hear violins playing in the background while reading your comments....

And put you in a reservation for dangerous socialpaths.

Please OH PLEASE hunt me down. I'll have a nice little surprise waiting for you when you get here.........

Get a lot of guns. Santries at the gates, bodyguards and armored cars. What a moron. What a wonderful life, ha ha ha ha.

I love the way you idiots put yourself into a life of fear all because of your self serving greed.

to deal with a lonely little leftist. Hell, you leftists have been talking about revolution for years, Of course, you still haven't made good on your idle threats. Occasionally, one of you grabs a gun and shoots someone, but the cops have all the fun. Hell, I'd love to kick the shit out of some leftists. Maybe I can help out the riot squads at the next protest you losers are having ... when is the next protest anyway?

Another thug cop wantabe. Let's see ypou kick some 'leftist' ass without police backup. Coward.

For workers to seize wealth that they created in the first place is not theft; it is expropriation of the expropriators. For zionists to steal land from Arab peasants with Bible stories as a justification is theft.

One problem with that theory. Workers don't create wealth, they sell their labor. It is the business owner that creates the wealth through risk, ingenuity, and strategic utilization of the labor and management skills sold to him by those workers for a fair and equitable price.

Workers always have choices when choosing whom to sell their skills to and for what price. But they are not more than a handtool to the entrepreneur. We will use them until they break; the system will send us more.

you do more for your side than a troop of chimpanzies. Good going.

What side is that? The side of logic?

you do more for the side of logic than a troop of ass picking, peeing on themselves, chimpanzees. You're correct. Again, good going.

Please come back for more. You're a posterboard for what reasonable, compassionate people step over once they know what it is. It's amusing to see your 'logic'.

Well. I guess that's more than I can say for you.

Sorry.

Founded on deceit, betrayal, death and infamy. Their cruelty unbelievable as they blame their horror on the victims.

they trained our military in interrogation as well as our police force.

not a dime for the occupation. Reperations are in order. The millions of refugees retake their rightful home. Stop following their asshole god with its genocide of the Phillistines. Rome had the right idea.

They hold that part of the world hostage with nuclear weapons. They are dangerous in their influence and self serving agenda.

Thanks for another reason why capitalism must be abolished and replaced by socialism. I could not have thought up a better argument myself. You are kind of like the guy who said "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" while defending the Vietnam War and his own participation in it.

Bwahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa! That idiot must be the last grandiloquent optimistic socialist to even ideate, at this stage in the game, that socialism could EVER in a million billion TRILLION years replace capitalism.

Nothing could be farther from reality. Meyer London sits on his computer fancying the return of Stalin and Mao Tse Tung while both Russia and China are becoming more capitalist societies every day. Cuba and North Korea are next on the list. Too bad for Meyer. Soon, he'll be forced off the planet if he wants to realize his socialist utopia. Good riddance.

Well. well. well. Another sucksessfull troll attack by the crippled intellect of our ruling class and/or lackey thereof...

Can someone please tell me who the fuck the "ruling class" is in America? You goddam socialists love to throw around all these ambiguous words and phrases, but they only make you look like idiots.

Could you imagine one of these leftist imbeciles walking up to someone on the street and start babbling about "crippled intellect", "ruling classes", and "fascists and lackeys"? People would look at him as if he had leprosy.......

OK Jackoff. The ruling class is the group of dicks that are above the law. Like Cheny & Bush. Useless royalty.

-the total disinformation of the first nonsense post about getting the illegal settlements off of Palestinian land. Israel is a rogue terror state and should be sanctioned like Iraq. UN weapons inspectors should, in a just world, close down all their nuclear weapon packages. As well as all the other WMDs that are turned against us the people of the world.

I was mistaken.

'Israel' is a criminal construct of wrenched filth. Traitors and betrayers as well murders and torturers.

And we all pay for this insanity.

would believe that the zionist apartheid state will still exist a hundred years from now or that by then capitalism will sill be functioning, with people letting corporate parasite bosses run their lives.

More nebulous, squishy phraseology. Above WHICH laws exactly? I don't think either Cheney OR Bush have broken any laws. In any event, if it could be proven that they had, then they most certainly could be brought up on charges. Look at that dolt Clinton for example. He was a member of your so-called "ruling class", and he perjured himself. Perjury is a crime, and he received due punishment.

Only a fool would attempt to predict the future a hundred years in advance. In in event, the socio-economic climate a century from now is irrelevant for the likes of you. You'll be long dead and most certainly forgotten.......

Lord.

This Jack Me Off character just keeps coming back with ever increasing sloganism, denial and general & specific ignorance and stupidity, doesn't it? Low grade troll bucking for medium grade troll?

Capitalism and the apartheid entity known as Israel will both be gone in much less than a hundred years. Both parasites will be eradicated.

After the brutal land grab in the late forties by Sharon and his battalions of ruthless killers, precursor to the present IDF murder squads, the land of Palestine was no longer a land of olive and citrus growers existing in relative harmony with their neighbors. From the evil of WW2 came the terror of invasion from zionist hyenas who worked with Adolph Eichmann so well.

The blind prophet of Thebes beckons the end of capitalism and the apartheid state of Israel ... bitches ... you bettah reckonize!

How, pray tell, can you herald the end of capitalism, and the supplanting with socialism, when all worldwide trends suggest completely the opposite?

Do tell......

suggest nothing of the sort. Haven't you noticed the growth of the world-wide anti-capitalist and anti-globalization movement? Have you been asleep? And notice who makes up the bulk of it - young people in their twenties. Take a look at the future in their faces. And think over the growing US trade deficit, the drying up of the world's petroleum supply in the next couple of decades, the inevitable default of large third world countries on loans by US banks, and you will see what is around the corner.

The ruin of a constructed financial crash and inflation with a gutted manufacturing base. Harald in for the new corporate elite fascism. Our only option is resistance, direct or indirect.

Well, in a word ........ No.

I haven't noticed anything of the sort. The world's strongest economies are dominated by capitalism and the desire for globization. The U.S. dominates in the West and the E.U. in the east. Cash is still King! And those twenty year-olds of today to whom you refer, are tomorrows middle-class consumers. They'll be driving their SUVs with synthetic oil and premium grade high-tess petroleum fuel (with techron), spending billions in the malls at Christmas time and slaving for the man. Five months out of the year, they too will be working for the government to pay off their annual tax debts. but theirs no trend towards socialism in America nor in the world. The socialist countries remain among the poorest on the globe, and with the worst civil rights abuses. These facts alone are a testament to the failure of socialism.

but not a cent for the rest of us. That you would love.

Socialism is fire departments, water systems, schools, roads and police departments that serve the general public. I can see that this represents unseized profit to you, but ' get a grip' your motivations are transparent. In one respect the spiel you type, type type forth has one facet of reason, socialism run by the corporations for the corporations always results in ruin. Usually the survivors picking through the rubble looking for food and shelter after their fatherland has been ravaged. But keep on the board, you are an easy target for display to the reader of just how morally bankrupt your motivations are.

National Socialism is what Hitler and his financiers called it but it had nothing to do with socialism governed by say a referendum structured resource distribution. In this type of system, taxes go to social programs, out of the hands of the cut throats in Wall Street. No small wonder your adversarial position. But in reality you prove yourself ill informed, dull, brutish and someone to shun in public if your views were known.

You are an aberration to polled attitudes, nation wide in areas of school funding, health care, and military involvement. No wonder your hostility. You're a shithead nazi.

Let me tell you something Meyer. People like myself would be successful and find ways to overcome adversity despite ANY type of system. And people like you would find something to whine about regardless of the type of system. You see, some attitudes and personalities prevail regardless of the type of government, and other attitudes and personalities are always abject failures. I am the former and you are the latter. Optimist ... pessimist. Glass is half full vs. glass is half empty. Responsibility vs. irresponsibility. Small government conservative vs. tax and spend liberal. Hope vs. despair. Good vs. evil.

How pitiable you are.

Ever had your house burn down? Do you know what the fire department does when it gets finished putting out the flames? It sends you a bill, that's what. Sounds like socialism to me.

As far as water systems being socialism, where I live they send me a bill every month for the water that I use, too.

And everybody knows that the American public schools systems are among the worst in any first world nation. Great track record so far, this socialism thing has going for it.

And police departments?? I can't believe you indymedia leftists would even group the police in with your precious social services. After all, you're always claiming that they're fascist thugs and that America is becoming a police state. Now, you want to take credit for their successes by claiming they're the essence of socialism. Patently absurd.

Socialism is poverty and oppression. That's what it always has been, and that's what it always will be.

It is socialism that represents hope and optimism. Hope for a world without slums, poverty, conspicuous consumption amidst destitution, sales quotas, bill collectors, a built-in reserve army of unemployed people ready to take the job of anyone who complains about working conditions, sadistic bosses with the power to fire people on a whim, the use of human beings as commodities, indoctrination of the young in military "values. It also means free education at all levels, including graduate school, and free medical care for everyone. And it means that everyone is guaranteed a job. Capitalism means the negation of all these things.

are the very essence of socialism.

Answer me just one question, Meyer:

Under a system of socialism, a system where an individual can own nothing, a system where only those things an individual needs for for my immediate survival are doled out by a hording governent , what motivation would an individual have under such a system to work?

Under a system of socialism, where everyone is tended to cradle to grave by his government, why should this individual choose to labor when he could choose to do nothing and still have his needs met?

Socialism is illogical.

All this indicates is that you as an individual would choose to live as a parasite if given the opportunity; it says nothing about society as a whole. A hard core case like you who refused to work might have to serve some time in an educational work camp.

Therein lies the essence of socialism. If one refuses to work, the offending party is punished with a stiff prison sentence, financed at the expense of the rest of the population.

Sounds a bit like slavery to me. And it thoroughly explains why every socialist nation to date has ended in rampant poverty and oppression: the citizens choose only to work hard enough to stay out of jail.

Thanks for proving my point (and you're own idiocy) yet again, Meyer.

Perhaps you would work only hard enough to stay out of jail, Jack, but please don't universalize your fundamental lack of backbone and your aimless life. My opinion is that most people would actually work harder if they didn't think they were being screwed over and exploited. In how many office towers in Los Angeles, for example, is the entire workforce (except for some boss wannabes) doing the least amount of work possible to avoid being fired? Does that mean that capitalism removes incentive, leading to universal poverty? According to your logic, I guess it does.

For instance, you and I are quite different. You feel that people should be imprisoned for refusing to work. I, on the other hand, do not.

If someone chooses not to work, he is committing a crime only against himself. It's not a crime against you, and frankly, it's none of your business.

Just because people sloth off in the office under capitalism does not mean that capitalism removes the incentive to work. These people get up every day and go to the office to a job where they realize that if they do not at least put in the minimum effort required, they will be replaced, their income lost, and their means of procuring sustenance extremely hampered. So while you think these people should be incarcerated at my expense, I think these people should be allowed to starve themselves to death for free.

People will not work harder under any other system than they have under capitalism. This fact is not disputable. This capitalist system has accomplished more monumental acheivements in a shorter period of time than all other systems of socialism, communism, and totalitarianism combined.

achievements is correct.

minus 1 for spelling. 'i' before 'e' except after 'c'.

that you follow my prose that closely. Perhaps you'd like a job as my proofreader? I pay the standard minimum wage...

Two horrific world wars, costing the lives of tens of millions. The near destruction of the earth's environment, casting the continued existence of the human race as well as other species into question. Turning human beings into commodities. Making the poverty of some the precondition of the prosperity of others. Warping the human spirit, so that people see their main activities in life as toadying to some boss and buying as many commodities (useful or not) as possible with credit cards.

No, Meyer, you may NOT answer the question you WISH I'd have asked INSTEAD of the one that I DID, in fact, ask.

The question was "what has socialism ever accomplished." No one gives a bucket of war rat piss for your typical anti-capitalism harangues.

Now get busy answering the question.

As Noam Chomsky has pointed out many times, Russia and eastern Europe were essentially part of the third world before the First World War. Whatever one may think of Stalinism (and he hates it) the fact is that even that carricature of socialism raised the material standard of living of the masses greatly. A fairer comparison than the USSR/eastern Europe vs the rich nations of the West would be to compare the progress that the former have made during the past 80 years to the progress that the impoverished nations of Central and South America have made while under the domination of US capitalism. What has capitalism ever done for the peasants of El Salvador, for example, except give them 14 hour workdays and death squads to deal with them if they complain?

By the way, issues such as world wars killing tens of millions of people and human beings being treated as commodities may not be important to you (which says something about you) but they are important to me and many others.

Here we see Meyer London herald the triumphant successes of Stalinism and how it "raised the material standard of living of the masses greatly". This person is obviously insane in the membrane.

And then he goes on to contrast the "progress" of the Soviet Union and the USA over the past 80 years. Hmmm, let's see. One of those nations bankrupted itself, formally announced it's doctrines to be a failure to the world, lost complete and total control of the satellite nations it had dominated for decades, and has been gradually adopting the social and economic methods of capitalism ever since ...

and the other nation has been steadily increasing it's wealth and dominance over the entire globe during the same period.

Not a tough call, even for an idiot. Of course, Meyer's no ordinary idiot. He's insane in the membrane.

would prefer to be citizens of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, or the Ukraine?

You obviously either didn't understand what I wrote, or didn't know how to respond to it and so decided to answer something that I didn't write. If the former, help for adults with reading difficulties can be found at the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Long Beach Adult School, and many other institutions that offer help to the victims of cuts in public education by right-wingers.

Oh, I think it was pretty clear. You suffer under the delusion that Stalinism is preferable to capitalism. You seem to think that the people of El Salvador have it worse in this hemisphere, being neighbors to the dominant economic giant of the world, than the people of the Ukraine do, having only recently shirked their chains of oppression from the very country you proffess superior.

In short, you're insane in the membrane.

That is right; even under Stalinism working people in the Ukraine were better off materially than people in El Salvador by any measurement - health care, housing, nutrition, education, literacy, full employment, cultural resources, access to the necessities of life. And at least after the death of Stalin, Ukrainians, unlike Salvadorans, were free from death squads and crazed execution campaigns.

You got that right, Meyer. Ukraine is better off now than it was under the Soviet Union. Now, they have free elections, "orange revolutions", and pro-western leadership:

http://www.turkishpress.com/world/news.asp?id=050110173815.fv5kolxf.xml



Gali Tibbon - (AFP/File)

"KIEV (AFP) - Ukraine waited for "orange revolution" hero Viktor Yushchenko to be declared president-elect as election officials met to announce the final results of a rerun vote, which would pave the way for the pro-Western leader's inauguration. "

The people of Ukraine willing to throw out all those state-provided freebies, free healthcare and whatnot that Meyer mentioned, for "pro-Western" leadership.

Imagine that.........

Any time he has his behind handed to him in an argument he just changes the subject.

He also makes assumptions about things he knows nothing about - such as his assumption that Ukranians don't want universal health care. If he runs across a subject that hasn't been dealt with by Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh he is lost.

How absurd is that? Of course people want universal health care. Everybody loves freebies. But the rub is that people are smart enough to know socialism isn't going to get it for them. The people are smart enough to know you don't get something for nothing in this world. The people are not willing to give up their freedoms, money, and rights to their own person just for some pie-in-the-sky promise of "universal health care". And the people, more often than not, get what they want. In America, the people wanted four more years of George Bush and four more years of the guiding hand of conservativism channeling this beautiful capitalism-machine. In the Ukraine the people want that, too. So they oust their socialist oppressors and vote in more responsible leadership. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

The election in the Ukraine had nothing to do with socialism. The people ousted wanted close relations with ultra-capitalist Russia, which is now a hell on earth thanks to "free market reforms."

By the way, I hope you realize that the US is the only industrialized nation on earth that doesn't have a national health care service. That is because here belief in capitalism - like belief in Noah's Ark or Jonah and the Whale - has been made into a quasi-religious belief. It is hardly surprising that Bible nuts like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are also big believers in free enterprise mumbo-jumbo. Some people will believe anything.

Well, in the imortal words of my sweet departed mother (God rest her soul):

"Just because everyone else is doin' it, don't make it right. If everyone was jumpin' off the top of a skyscraper would you follow, Jack?"

And in my own words: "Quit yer whinin' and pay for your own goddam health care!" Stop expecting me to pay for YOUR quality of life, Meyer. Grow up and take responsibility for your own piss-poor life's choices. It's not my fault you can't pay for health care. Why should I have to pay for it?

That post wasn't elegant at all, Jack. Why, anyone might think that you are a badly informed redneck upon reading it. Hasn't it occurred to you that making medical care a right for everyone is simply civilized behavior, as opposed to the kind of behavior that you favor?

Well, where I'm from men wear the epithet "redneck" as a badge of honor. And they also don't consider it "civilized behaviour" to steal another man's wallet so you can increase your own standard of living. Where I'm from, we don't much like commies and socialist pieces of trash like you. Hell, on Saturday nights we go out to the old fields and strap liberals to the backs of our 4X4s and drag them around face first in the clay and dust like Achilles dragged Hector. Where I'm from, you Meyer, would not likely last fifteen minutes.

That's not true, Jack. I lived in Bakersfield for four years and lived to tell of it. I bet you live there now, and work as a retalil clerk in the ladies' lingerie or perfume department at a department store. After work you dress up in a cowboy suit and ride around with other phony tough guys in a gas hog suv shouting insults at people with dark skin, who look like snotty bookworms, or who you think might be gay or lesbian. You have to be home by ten, though, or Mom gets really mad and grounds you for a week.

I'll bet you're a lot of fun at parties. It would be lots of fun to get tanked and subtly comment about the greatness of capitalism, or to express vehment support for Israel, or some other such thing, and watch while you pitch your hissy fits. And in between your tantrums and rants about socialism, we could have you guess the occupation of those in attendance, just for giggles.

are upon you. And by the way, real cowboys don't wear polyester cowboy suits. Or plastic cowboy boots.

There's no such thing, Meyer, as a California cowboy. Except perhaps at the gay bars you frequent. I hear those southern Cali cowboy queers have a thing for chaps without the crotch, and they often don't wear much more than that. I realize that my alpha male status in this forum has attracted you to me, and you're under the impression that I'm your ex-boyfriend from Bakersfield just playing tricks on you. But I assure you, Meyer, nothing could be further from the truth. And while I'm sure there are plenty of other lonely indymedia activists searching for the services of a "power bottom", I really must inform you that I'm not one of those. Thanks anyway, and good luck in your search for true love.

Is that what your mommy tells you when she tucks you in at night, or your pshchpathic wife who beats you with in an inch of your life when you get home?

Does she let you wear her strap on, oh alpha man? Ha ha ha.

It's what your mommy tells me when I've got her bent over the armchair in her livingroom pounding her from behind while sipping a cool bud light and watching ESPN on the TV ...........

You're fucking my dead mother? Amazing. Was it good?

she is a dead fuck. Your sister is much better.

And tell your stepdad I said I want that fifty bucks he owes me.

I know it's difficult to envision a world without your mommy and dad.

At least the ones who are screwing you and your sister.

Notice how Jack has elevated the general intellectual and moral tone of this forum. It just goes to show what the quality of his mind and the quality of his ideas must be. Is it an accident that a man who enthuses over capitalism also exhibits this sort of verbal behavior? I don't think so. Perhaps we should not be abetting his trolling by responding to his pathetic and infantile messages. Keep in mind that Jack's is the kind of personality that capitalism and patriarchy tend to produce. One more reason why they have to go.

If you just ignore capitalism, it will all go away. You'll wake up back in Bakersfield with Toto, Dorothy, and Aunty Emm serving you milk and cookies in your fantastic world of socialism, with pictures of Stalin and Marx on the walls, and where those bad, bad people who refuse to slave for your society are all behind bars. Just clack your heels together and keep repeating "There's no system like communism. There's no system like communism".............

Notice how after having his homosexual advances nixed, Meyer decides he's going to ignore me. I really didn't mean hurt you, Meyer. But we can still be "friends". I suppose I'm just cursed with this endowment to break hearts. But in time, the pain will lessen, and your broken heart will mend.

dear readers, if you scroll up a bit or search the thread for the word "oil" you will find out why this kind of debate will soon (societally speaking) be irrelevant. once the petroleum is gone -- whether it's 20 or a hundred years from now it will eventually be GONE -- global civilization as we know it, love or hate it, will cease to exist. that is, of course, unless someone starts to take both conservation and development of new energy sources (fusion, for example -- check out http://www.jet.efda.org/ and then write a letter to your representative or georgy boy to ask why the US is not contributing to this effort) seriously. somehow, though, i doubt the global oil companies or the US gubment will take any initiative so long as it would interfere with profits. doesn't capitalism rock so hard.

"all the oil is going to be gone soon. Repent."

Name one natural resource that has ever run out.

Brains, among people like you. And fertile soil; when Ohio was first settled it was two feet deep; now it is a few inches due to wasteful farming methods. And fresh water, in many areas - especially ground water.And various animal species, hunted to extinction. And coral, which might have protected some of the recently devastated areas from the tidal waves. And land itself - increasingly being lost to the sea because of ocean warming and melting polar ice. And ask anyone who knows anything about the history of the Pennsylvania oil industry whether it is possible to run out of oil.

Fertile soil does not “run out”. Soil fertility can be restored by crop rotation and organic fertilizers.

Fresh water does not “run out”. There are literally hundreds of purification methods available for making potable water.

Many animal species have become extinct naturally, too. Shall we declare war on Mother Nature?

There’s plenty of coral in the sea. It certainly hasn’t “run out”. It’s just slow in the making. (Not that it really serves much purpose anyway.)

The land has not “run out”. I’m standing on dry land right now. Perhaps in a few billion years it will be all gone. Perhaps not. But your hyperbole means little.

I asked you to name a natural resource that has ever completely and totally run out. You failed to do so. So now the question begs.

If you live around here, it is likely to be gone in a lot less time than a few billion years. Of course, if the piece of land you are standing on goes under really quickly, you might serve a useful purpose for the first time in your life - as food for the fish.

for California to fall off the face of the earth. We can only pray. Perhaps if the rest of us stay in God's good graces he'll bless us with just such an event. Or we could hire Lex Luther to hijack some nukes and launch them at the faultline. Either way, buy up all of Nevada and Arizona while you still can if you want some of that new beachfront property.

You sound like one of those flakes that Kansas native Thomas Frank wrote about in his recent book What's the Matter With Kansas? The ones who think that nuclear war and the Rapture are coming soon anyway so why worry about conservation or political oppression or poverty? The ones who enthusiastically vote for millionaires who are going to screw them over because the millionaires claim that they believe in Bible stories.

I'm not the one preaching gloom and doom. It's the conservationists here doing that.

And I'm not advocating gluttony either. I'm just saying that the sky isn't falling, chicken little.

No, but the polar ice caps are melting and breaking up. You should read up and remedy your ignorance by finding out what the horrific consequences of that are likely to be.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

And I feel fine.

Seriously. If the polar ice caps were melting, and life as we know it was in jeopardy, wouldn't we be hearing about this from some "reliable" source? You know, like anyone other than some anonymous gloom and doom preaching nut on indymedia? Methinks there'd be scientists on the TV and the radio ever day screaming "Stop. Don't do it. No. Quit it."

Instead of all those brilliant minds analyzing the situation ... we're stuck with chicken little. But hey, that laughed at Noah, too. How much more you got to go on that ark?