Floyd, Kaepernick, Fromm, & Brees

What do these four men have in common and what is uncommon between them?

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All four of them live(d) in the United States of America as legal citizens. That is one common denominator, but that is essentially where any similarities end other than genetics. What are the contrasts of these four men?

Three of the men play or have played in the NFL, one is no longer allowed to play in the NFL, and another was a fan of the NFL. Two are black men and two are white men, all from very different backgrounds inside the U.S. Three of the men are still living. Two of the men enjoy an extremely lavish lifestyle provided to them by their zip code births and family, the NFL, their respective team-owners, and brand-endorsements. One no longer has a career in the NFL and those rewards for simply going down to one knee during the imposed National Anthem before games to peacefully protest “police violence” on African-Americans and non-whites—a right provided by and protected by our U.S. Constitution and First Amendment for ALL U.S. citizens. One man was restrained by police officers and then suffocated to death by one officer, confirmed by two separate autopsies. The victim was suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a nearby market. Finally, two of these four men enjoy very different American lifestyles, legal protections and privileges under our laws and Constitution DESPITE the fact that all four men are/were legal U.S. citizens.

There must be another fact remembered here. According to our federal and state laws, all of us deserve equally certain and specific protections by these laws, even when “suspected” of a crime, before and during legal “Due Process” by our justice system. A popular catch-phrase for this is “innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.” Every single American citizen is provided these inalienable rights regardless of race, religion, color, creed, and sexual-orientation by the laws of the land, that is in theory. Economic or financial status SHOULD also be included and defined in these rights, but that’s another debate for another time and likely for a balanced, equitable U.S. Supreme Court.

Here is why I have gathered these four American men into a group. They currently represent citizens of the United States and the laws that are supposed to protect them. Perhaps I should have included Officer Derek Chauvin as well, but I chose not to in order to keep this post and topic somewhat brief and time-considerate. I will assume that most of my readers understand the purpose of American law-enforcement leading to arrests and probable cause (not sentencing!) for any police detainments and arrests, and followed by “due process” within our civil and criminal justice code and our U.S. Constitution.

  • George Floyd was suspected of passing counterfeit money. Did he deserve to die for this BEFORE getting legal representation in a court of law (due process)?
  • Colin Kaepernick was a star quarterback in the NFL who chose to peacefully protest police violence, a right provided to him by our U.S. Constitution. Yet, after his 2016 season and still incredibly talented, but released by the 49’ers, and then no other NFL team (31 other teams!) wanted to sign him, not even as a backup quarterback.
  • Jake Fromm is extremely outspoken about his personal religious beliefs giving him privileged success in football: I want to represent Christ the best I can, Fromm said. He later reemphasized his personal mission of proselytizing saying I hope I can reach and influence as many people as possible. Let’s try to go and influence others, lead people to Jesus, and hopefully do the best we can with influencing them and hopefully shed a little light in their lives.” In 2019 during a Twitter conversation with a friend about gun-ownership Fromm tweeted But no guns are good. They need to let me get suppressors, then he added, Just make them very expensive so only elite white people can get them haha. Fromm has never experienced any trials or tribulations his entire life.
  • Drew Brees made comments during a June 3rd, 2020 Yahoo Finance interview about American symbols in the wake of protests over George Floyd’s murder and Kaepernick’s PEACEFUL protest against police violence. He said I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country. […] I think what you do by standing there [upright on your feet] and showing respect for the flag with your hand over your heart, is it shows unity. Brees is also recorded as stating his top four priorities in life in order of most importance. They are 4) philanthropy via Christian organizations, 3) football, 2) family, and 1) faith in Jesus Christ as he interprets it. The only trials and tribulations Brees has ever faced in his entire life are football injuries or team adversities.

What are your thoughts about my grouping and their bullet-points? I am curious to know, from any perspective. If possible, include your thoughts about social-media or freedom of expression today on social-media and how it is properly or improperly used by celebrities.

Late addition:
An interview by ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter June 4th, 2020 is quite telling from a celebrity white-man’s perspective. Watch the entire 6-minute interview. It is very revealing what Dale Earnhardt, Jr., a popular American NASCAR driver—a sport dominated by the Old South or Confederate States, white culture, and most popular in the South—says about the murder of George Floyd, racism and police violence today in the U.S.

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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2016: Cries for Mutiny

This is part one of a two-part blog-post

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This here is why it is so important to personally communicate with our state and federal officials, as well as be very active citizens exercising our civil duties and responsibilities!

The U.S. Constitution, Supreme Court, and integrity of the Union of 50 states has been under threat by a retro-popular sociopolitical mentality that is eerily reminiscent of Medieval Europe’s theocratic feudal systems. I address here one such local example out of many Texas Congressional members acutely bent on returning to those Dark Ages. Click his picture’s caption below for his full article and modus operandi. Following is my personal letter to the TX Congressman.

My personal written response to Mr. Murr’s article and posture:

Mr. Murr, Texas H.R. Dist. 53,

I read your July-Sept 2016 opinion-editorial (Op-Ed) article in HomeTown magazine entitled “What To Do When the Feds ‘Mess with Texas?‘” and I must say it was quite polarizing and partisan. I feel the claims made in your article may not completely represent those of your citizens in your 12 counties but your personal beliefs/opinions as is the Op-Ed designation. However, just in case it is based on a comprehensive survey of your 12-county citizens, I’d like to offer another perspective to those residents.

If there’s one factual statistic about Texas it is that it has become a more diverse culture of politics and beliefs than 30 or 50 years ago! The traditional sociopolitical landscape of Texas has and is quickly evolving into a ‘non-Caucasian’ spectrum, e.g. Texas is now primarily a Hispanic non-Caucasian demographic. Old Texas traditions are fortunately dying out.

While reading your first nine paragraphs, I couldn’t help but think this verbiage can represent any side of Texas sociopolitical issues: What does it mean to be one state unified with 49 others? What are the many benefits of being part of the United States of America? For starters, Texans and three other southwestern states are all protected and/or supported by federal law-enforcement staff and agencies from Mexican, Central, and South American drug cartels. Texans owe much gratitude to the commerce of 49 other states supporting Texas. These are just two benefits out of many! But sadly, the spirit of your article hinted of that old typical rhetoric of “Texas is better than the entire U.S. and can be a bully in federal politics if it so desires! After all, we are the ‘Lone Star’ state and we don’t need anyone! We can fly our state flag above the stars-n-stripes when we want!” This sort of arrogance I loathe as an 8th-generation Texan myself. Many times a year I remember the plethora of NATIONAL benefits we Texans enjoy as Americans! Your article hints of 1860’s secession, or worse… when Texas was a Republic and could not and did not stand on its own!

The very protections federal support provides economically, socially, and militarily (and you vaguely and implicitly touched on, if at all) CANNOT be provided by 254 Texas counties, let alone twelve. With due respect Mr. Representative, it is a give and take relationship with our federal union. Your three specific gripes: restrooms, equality, and Obamacare, are very minor issues compared to the numerous advantages Texas gains being an integral part of the Union of 50 United States! It would be quite arrogant for Texas to expect and dictate what is suitable for 49 other states to legislate, especially on such three MINOR issues you point out. Yet, you state later…

“There is little to suggest that Washington will ever curtail its intrusion into state and local affairs, regardless of the outcome of elections or change of administrations. So lets look at what we have done and what we can continue to do, both here in Texas and across the country, to take matters into OUR OWN HANDS.”

Wow! I am appalled by such mutinous cries!

I will contribute to the broader education or re-education of readers about the purpose of our U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land… even over Texas. But before I explain its purpose, let’s remember why we hold elections every 2- or 4-years, or it might vary depending on which state, county, and municipality voters reside.

Our frequency of political elections accommodates an evolving, changing spectrum of democratic civilization and its governing. Though arguably 4-8 years is seen by many as too long a term(s) in office, it is also reasonably argued that 4-8 years is inadequate for measuring the efficiency, feedback, accuracy, and success/failure of previous legislation and governing. Yet, there is no arguing this frequency/infrequency certainly does hold value for the SPIRIT of democracy! The people are heard. Therefore, there is rarely any cause for political hyper-tantrums or social anarchy when 2-4 years expires so quickly and the “voice of the people” can be heard and represented again.

The purpose of our U.S. Supreme Court is to be the final judge in all cases involving laws of Congress, and the highest law of all — the U.S. Constitution. This role DOES NOT make the Supreme Court all-powerful; in fact, far from it. Their power is limited or “checked” by the other two governing branches — Congress and the President along with his/her cabinet. Though governing a democratic people in this manner does not guarantee perfection in all cases at all times, but it seems to be one of the better governing systems in the world… when kept in parity and as pure as possible.

The democratic system represents in theory, and for the most part in practice, a system of governing which represents the “greatest good for the greatest number.” However, as history has adequately shown, it isn’t always pure. For example, in order for President Lincoln to have his 13th Amendment (via his Emancipation Proclamation) pass by a two-thirds majority in 1863 in the House chamber of Congress, Lincoln’s cabinet, aids, and lobbyists were forced to use ‘impure’ bribes and promises in order to capture certain Congressional votes or abstentions to get the 13th Amendment passed—the freeing of all slaves!

Our three-branched system doesn’t exempt the Supreme Court from impurities either. In 1857 the Supreme Court (Dred Scott vs Sandford) basically ruled that African-Americans were not part of the “sovereign people” who made the U.S. Constitution, were thus not U.S. citizens, and hence could not sue for their freedom. In this situation it is (pure?) good the federal Congress and White House later passed amendments that overturned this Supreme Court decision… and 8-9 years later did so with 5 slave-owning Justices (Democrats) and only 2 dissenting abolitionist Justices (Republicans).

It is worthy to note one example of the usefulness of Mr. Murr’s “democratic” battle-cry would ironically be our need to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in favor of Citizens United; which was a Republican-majority Supreme Court decision then undermining Mr. Murr’s “popular” democracy today. So it repeatedly begs the question, “How and why does a court case reach the final highest court of the land?” Research it and learn! Don’t just take anyone’s words for it or any politician’s battle-cry for it! Do the legwork and homework yourself!

Clearly, governing or ruling a people MUST be frequently evolving with several democratic “check-points” in the system to guard against a plutarchy (like Texas? 12 Texas counties?) from seizing and/or manipulating power and laws that DO NOT represent the majority of 49 other United States… and in which Texas is supposed to be part of. It is a give and take Mr. Murr.

As you correctly stated in your second paragraph:

“The Founding Fathers established our form of [Federal] government so that citizens, through their elected officials, could establish laws that reflect their desires; [and] particularly at the state and local levels.”

Though some/many Texans forget they are part of a bigger picture, a bigger Union and enjoying those many benefits of a Federal Team/Union—sometimes getting consumed by their own little world, or as you correctly said “particularly at the state and LOCAL levels”—having the protections of a Federal 3-branched Team is a wonderful blessing for ALL Americans, especially those who are not “in the majority” (oligarchy?) of social, political, or religious or non-religious sectors yet STILL deserve their individual rights, freedoms, and protections as American citizens, even in Texas.

Sincerely,
Professor Taboo (here, in place of my real name)

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My Conclusion For This Post
The theme of my written letter to Congressman Murr was centered on his rallies (threats?) of mutiny aboard the U.S.S. America, e.g. “into OUR OWN HANDS.” His assertions about the function and authority of our Federal Branches as well as the spirit of six Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, additionally a lengthy history of Supreme Court decisions upholding the separation of church and state… are simply and as a whole misinformed. His direct attacks on “Public Restroom Policy” and “Same-Sex Marriage” politically are nothing to ignore or dismiss, but their protection and/or legislation is unambiguously paramount! I’ll address their defense and other inevitable sociopolitical issues more thoroughly in my next post, 2017:  Our Past, Present & Forecast.

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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This work by Professor Taboo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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Circus of Recycling – Part III

The last Part from the Circus of Recycling – Part II and I.
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* * * * * * * * * *

CIA Memo 655104p1

R.H. Hillenkoetter, “Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense: Subject: Clandestine Air Transport Operations” CIA, May 28, 1948.

Full CIA Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense

* * * * * * * * * *

In the art of modern intelligence and counter-intelligence, implementing multiple cloaks are quite useful. Creations of illusion are not magical, or mystical, but they are hints of planned suggestion and a keen understanding of human nature. One of the most historic and prolific examples of intel and counter-intel, or disinformation, was Operation Bodyguard used by the Allies in WWII to hide and deceive the German High Command of the time and place of the 1944 D-Day Normandy invasion. For the removal of Palestinians from the U.N. partitioned land, villages, and homes for Zionist Israel occupation, in comparison there was little difference.

As already examined in the previous Part II, the amount of U.S. funding mobilized for the creation, resettlement, and defense of the new state of Israel was well-organized and well cloaked. Between 1939 and May 1948 the Jewish Agency for Israel raised $3.5 trillion in today’s dollars (New York Times, August 10, 1961). And this agency is simply one Zionist organization out of many more. With the money raised the arms smuggling by The Sonneborn Group – Institute to the Haganah in Palestine followed (see CIA Memorandum above). There was still one major issue, or cloak to be devised. With the Nazis destroyed, the majority of surviving Jews throughout Europe wanted to remain and rebuild their lives. Rabbi Klaussner, a Zionist in charge of displaced persons in post-WWII Europe, reported the difficulty to the Jewish American Conference May 2, 1948…

“I am convinced people must be forced to go to Palestine… We must, instead of providing ‘displaced persons’ with comfort, create the greatest possible discomfort for them.”
What Price Israel?, Alfred H. Lilienthal, Infinity Publishing; Anniversary edition (March 1, 2004)

Hence, the underground campaign of “Chomer ‘Enoshi Tov” began.
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European Refugee Camps Create Palestinian Refugee Camps
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If you are curious by what is meant by the Hebrew “Chomer ‘Enoshi Tov“, then the perfect expert to ask is Noam Chomsky. In a 2014 interview he used the term while discussing the Jewish Holocaust:

“Well the translation of the title [ed. Chomer Enoshi Tov] would be something like “Good Human Material.” What [Yosef Grodzinsky] means is that the Zionist emissaries had a doctrine that able-bodied men and women between 18 and 35 had to be compelled to go to Palestine where they would be cannon-fodder for the coming conflict. Now the others they didn’t care much about and even undermined efforts to save children and so on. Well, all of this was going on in the immediate wake of the holocaust involving the survivors. No concern about them. You look through the 1950s, there’s virtually no discussion of the holocaust.”

Exodus_1947_after_British_takeover

British containment of the SS Exodus, 1947

“Good Human” cannon-fodder for the conquest of Palestine and the independence and defense of Israel. Ben-Gurion, Rabbi Klaussner, and many other Zionist envoys would use this phrase repeatedly regarding the repopulation of Palestine.

From 1934 as part of the long maritime trail of Jewish refugees escaping Nazi Germany to Palestine, the S.S. Exodus in July 1947 had carried the most passengers, 4,515 Jewish refugees, until the Atzmaut in January 1948. And as Noam Chomsky correctly explains above, in popular American media and literature from 1947 to 1958, no one was interested in the Holocaust until the 1960’s when the fate of world perception and acceptance of Israel hung in the balance. When the film Exodus had hit American theaters in 1960, the general perception began to significantly change. Although Leon Uris’s 1958 bestseller inspired the film, the actual events were far less extraordinary than the book and film both glamorized.

The late Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor of sociology, Baruch Kimmerling, corrects and expounds the misguided literary and cinematic portrayals:

“When the [SS Exodus] embarked, the UN Special Committee on Palestine was holding discussions and Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, the primary governing body of the state-in-formation, felt that the plight of Jewish refugees in Europe needed to be dramatized in order to attract more sympathy for the Jewish struggle over Palestine. The British authorities had refused to let the immigrants disembark in Palestine, or even to take refuge in transitional camps in Cyprus, forcing the boat to be redirected back to Germany. To prevent such a ghastly outcome, Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann persuaded the French Prime Minister, Leon Blum, to host the refugees. Ben-Gurion rejected this solution out of hand, and the poor survivors remained on board for seven months.
Israel’s Culture of Martydom, by Baruch Kimmerling, The Nation, Dec. 22, 2004. http://www.thenation.com/article/israels-culture-martyrdom/

And further, more accurate events are just as astonishing…

“Ben-Gurion’s insensitivity was rooted in his “Palestine-centric” attitude, best exemplified by his 1938 remark that “if I knew it was possible to save all children of Germany by their transfer to England and only half of them by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, because we are faced not only with the accounting of these children but also with the historical accounting of the Jewish people.” This was not merely a rhetorical declaration. Grodzinsky tells us with great pain how Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders vetoed the immigration of 1,000 orphans, who were in physical and emotional danger as a result of the harsh winter of 1945, from the camps in Germany to England, where the Jewish community had managed to secure them permits. Another group of roughly 500 children of camp inhabitants was barred, after Zionist intervention, from reaching France, whose rabbinical institutions had offered them safe haven.”
Ibid.

To add further insult to the plight of Jewish-European Holocaust refugees, few American and Western European newspaper and radio consumers were informed at the time that many of the Exodus passengers had applied for immigration visas to the United States (denied by Zionists) and/or many more were simply wanting to settle in more peaceful countries — a state of affairs Palestine certainly could not claim. Israel was anything but peaceful.

In the end, however, Ben-Gurion’s and Zionism’s propaganda scheme succeeded despite Jewish-European refugees being sick of war, fighting, and concentration-refugee camps and hundreds to thousands had become anti-Zionists!

The Giyus and The Sieff Group

As mentioned before, the ingathering of Jews into Palestine was not going to Zionist expectations; not enough Jewish-European DP’s were flocking voluntarily in rapid waves to the new Israel state. The slow low numbers would not survive the continued Arab conflicts. What was needed to abate Jewish war-fears was a growing army, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), to wage the conflicts. Because Americans and European Jews would never agree to or publicly side with another militaristic conflict, Zionist came up with an alternative target:  the most desperate of Jewish DP’s. In 1947 these men and their families were still residents of WWII refugee camps throughout Europe. Immediately the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee implemented a $25-million IDF recruitment campaign. On this campaign David Ben-Gurion and Chief of Staff Israel Galili reported…

“The manpower shortage for the fighting army forced modifications in the illegal immigration plan.

…New operational orders were issued: No more boats to bring homeless refugees to a safe haven. From the moment Ben-Gurion’s new orders were sent to the Mossad people in France through Shadmi, the decisions of the February 29th convention in Paris (with Ha’apaláh, B’richáh, and Haganáh delegates) were getting into effect. Haganáh and Mossad took upon themselves the task of moving fifteen thousand Jews of draft age and capability from Europe to Palestine by May 15th. Quotas were imposed on organizers in the various countries, aimed at carrying out the plan to bring in five thousand in March and April, and another ten thousand in May. Mossad people actually received stricter orders: From this moment on, no immigrants who lacked military capability were to be brought to Palestine. “We need only persons who fit the Haganáh,” wrote Ben-Gurion and Galili to commanders of Mossad in Europe.”
In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Struggle between Jews and Zionists in the Aftermath of World War II, by Yosef Grodzinsky, Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2004, pp. 187-188.

But this campaign failed, badly.

“Upon being called to fulfill “their duty” and join the IDF… most Jewish DPs were reluctant. A failed voluntary draft drive (to which less than 0.3 percent of the DP population volunteered) led to compulsory conscription.”
Ibid, p. 226.

Mossad-Haganah fighters-1947

Mossad-Haganah fighters, 1947 – Wikipedia

This conscription was called Giyus, and any draft evaders were treated very harshly. Giyus-evaders were blacklisted, fired from jobs, given heavy fines, evicted from their living quarters, food rations cut, and yes, even beaten (Ibid, p. 199). This is quite extraordinary when these “draftees” had never even lived in Palestine, much less became combat soldiers for a foreign nation which did not exist in 1947 and early 1948!

With perpetual Arab-Zionist conflict in Palestine greatly hindering war-efforts, on July 27, 1943, Great Britain and the U.S. State Department came very close to issuing a “reverse Balfour” resolution if the covert Zionist activities didn’t cease. When a Zionist group — which included the aforementioned David Niles (White House official under Roosevelt and Truman), and David Lilienthal (chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority), Ben Cohen (White House staff), Robert R. Nathan (economist in Dept. of Commerce), and Harvard graduate David Ginsberg (assistant from the Securities and Exchange Commission during Roosevelt’s New Deal plan) all known as The Sieff Group — got wind of the Balfour reversal…

…they took immediate action with further coalition help from Felix Frankfurter, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Bernard Baruch and others, and effectively killed the reversal.
Israel in the Mind of America, by Peter Grose, New York, NY: Knopf Doubleday, 1st ed., 1983, p. 177, 178-182.

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The 1949 Palestinian-Arab Refugee Crisis

James G. McDonald was the U.S. envoy to Palestine regarding the Zionist-Arab conflict and the growing displacement of Arab families. Authors Ilan Pappe and Rosemarie Esber describe it as Israel’s ethnic expulsion and cleansing of Palestine. But McDonald reported the crisis in 1948 to President Truman this way:

“The Arab refugee tragedy is rapidly reaching catastrophic proportions and should be treated as a disaster… Of approximately 400,000 refugees approaching winter, with cold heavy rains will, it is estimated, kill more than 100,000 old men, women and children who are shelterless and have little to no food.”
Fallen Pillars: U.S. Policy towards Palestine and Israel since 1945, by Donald Neff, Reprint Ed. Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2002, p. 68.

From 400,000 refugees in 1948 the numbers jumped to approximately 750,000 in 1949. Many of them fled to neighboring Arab countries. U.S. foreign diplomats in Cairo, Egypt and Amman, Jordan reported that their two countries were so overcrowded with starving weak Palestinian families, their already inundated almost non-existent resources were pushed to near collapse.

Remarkably those Arab states continued to donate some $11-million to refugee aids. The U.S. Department of State tracked these activities from April to December 1948 stating:

“This sum, in light of the very slender budgets of most of these governments, is relatively enormous.

…the total direct relief offered.. by the Israeli government to date consists of 500 cases of oranges. Meanwhile, Israel had acquired formerly Palestinian-owned properties worth at least $480 million.”
Ibid, pp. 69, 72.

Palestinian refugees_Amman_1949

Palestinian refugees in Amman, 1949

President Truman naively believed the Zionist-lead Israeli state could coexist in Palestine with Arabs as a single state of shared power. But Truman’s 1948 Presidential election had also been bought for him by American Zionist leaders and their organization’s funding and was under heavy pressure to immediately recognize the nation of Israel to the world DESPITE equally heavy opposition by the State Department. Truman tried to persuade Israel to allow Arab refugees to return to their original homes under this coexisting belief and had Mark Ethridge negotiate it. After being continually refused by Israel, Ethridge very disgusted reported to the State Department “What I can see is an abortion of justice and humanity to which I do not want to be midwife…” (Ibid p. 75).

Finally the State Department had one last card to play:  the $49-million of unallocated funds from an Export-Import Bank loan to Israel. They threatened to stop it unless Israel allowed at least 200,000 Arab refugees to return to Palestine. When the U.S. coordinator on Palestine Refugee Matters delivered the threat to an angry Israeli ambassador, he returned to his office and in less than an hour received a notification from the White House that Truman was dissociating himself from any withholding of the Ex-Im Bank loan.
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U.S. Popular Media Post-1953 to Today

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If you understand what is meant by the concept “a conflict of interest,” then one doesn’t have to search too far to find Zionist backgrounds or sway in key areas. As noted earlier in Part II, Zionist knew how to exploit the basic nature of the American political system including the intimate relationship it had with media sources influencing popular public opinion or pressure.

A noteworthy example of Zionist influence on American media is the acclaimed academic and co-writer co-creator to the U.N. Charter, Virginia Gildersleeve. Her struggle against the creation of Israel is one as well dramatized as David and Goliath, but was nowhere near as popular or familiar in 1930’s – 1940’s America, not even into the 1950’s.

Gildersleeve-Virginia-C

Virginia Gildersleeve

When Gildersleeve wrote in defense of human rights and humanitarian action for Palestine, and for Palestinian families to be allowed to return to their homes and villages, a widespread campaign was launched against her, stereotyping her work as “anti-Semitic” as Zionists pandered upon Holocaust sympathies. Toward the end of her exceptional career she devoted herself to human rights in the Middle East testifying before Congressional committees, even directly lobbying President Truman to rectify the horrible neglect and violations taking place in Palestine, but to no avail. In her memoirs she wrote the defeats…”[were attributed to] the Zionist control of the media of communication.

Zionist control was indeed apparent. A study of 1917 news coverage of WWI and post-war reparations (the contentious roots of the Balfour Declaration) revealed that editorial opinion leaned heavily in favor of the Zionist posture. This continued into the 1920’s. Political analyst and author Kathleen Christison writes…

“…editorials and news stories alike applauded Jewish enterprise, heralding a Jewish return to Palestine as ‘glorious news.’

The relatively heavy press coverage is an indicator of the extent of Zionist influence even in this early period. One scholar has estimated that, as of the mid-1920s, approximately half of all New York Times articles were placed by press agents, suggesting that U.S. Zionist organizations may have placed many of the articles on Zionism’s Palestine endeavors.”
Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy, by Kathleen Christison, 1st Ed. Berkeley, CA: University California Press, 2000, p. 40.

In 1953 author Alfred Lilienthal described the sweeping capture of American newspapers, magazines, and radio stations as remarkably complete. Their “…stories as well as editorial columns, gave primarily the Zionist views of events before, during, and after partition.” The Saturday Evening Post came under ruthless attack by Zionists for publishing an article by Milton Mayer criticizing Jewish nationalism as overly zealous. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, after threatening Israel’s callous treatment of Palestinians, severely underestimated the American Zionist media networks’ ability to hide opposing views to the conflict.

In a March 1949 study by the Department of State it revealed that the general American public was “unaware of the Palestine refugee problem, since it has not been hammered away at by the press or radio.” Most Americans were consumed by the threat of Soviet communism and the cold war, fed of course by most all major news mediums. Completing his book Palestine Is Our Business, author, Yale alum, and distinguished archaeologist Millar Burrows — also Vice-President of the National Committee to Combat Anti-Seminism — wrote:

“A terrible wrong has been done to the native people of [Palestine]. The blame for what has happened must be distributed among all concerned, including ourselves.

…the [counter]plan for Palestine advocated by the Arabs was a democracy with freedom of religion and complete separation of religion and the State, as in this country.

All the Arab refugees who want to return to their homes must be allowed and helped to do so, and must be restored to their own villages, houses, and farms or places of business, with adequate compensation from the Government of Israel for destruction and damage.”
Palestine Is Our Business, by Millar Burrows, Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1949, p. 11, 131, 154.

As a result of his book, the American Zionist Council published and distributed articles slandering Burrows’ work as “an anti-Semitic opus.

Dorothy Thompson – “Woman of the Year”

dorothy-thompson

Dorothy Thompson, c. 1937

She was often called “The First Lady of American Journalism” and considered by many colleagues a trailblazer in the field, Dorothy Thompson also made Time magazine’s 2nd most popular woman in America behind Eleanor Roosevelt. Because of Thompson’s poignant criticism of Adolph Hitler’s methods and rise to power while reporting in Germany, she was banned from the country. Upon returning to the U.S., she began writing a very popular syndicated column called “On the Record” which often delivered crisp, outspoken and politically centered analysis of current issues. In her advocacy for the relief of Jews in Europe and Nazi Germany, especially as a woman, Thompson naturally became a celebrity in American journalism, particularly with Zionist. The 1942 box-office hit film by George Stevens “Woman of the Year” with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy was based upon Thompson’s career. A Broadway play was also made about Thompson played by Lauren Bacall.

Effected by Holocaust atrocities and married at the time to a Hungarian Jewish husband (Josef Bard), Thompson at first favored the creation of the state of Israel in Palestine… until she physically went there herself in 1945. Thompson reversed her pro-Zionist position to a pro-Arab pro-Palestinian one, and what resulted was a complete fall from historical stardom. In his April 2015 article on Mondoweiss.net Gil Maguire gives tribute to Thompson writing…

“Dorothy Thompson’s [career] is truly a remarkable story.  Her apex was probably 1948 when Claire Booth Luce and others wanted her to run for president.  She’d been one of Zionism’s most famous and influential spokesmen.  Her defection, in 1949, created great anger in the Jewish/Zionist communities, and in few short years her career was in tatters and her influence largely gone. Today, Dorothy Thompson is virtually unknown and unremembered.  This fascinating woman who deserves to be an icon of the feminist movement, is rarely, if ever, mentioned as an important female historical figure.”

In the 1950 documentary “Sands of Sorrow” produced by the Council for the Relief of Palestine Arab Refugees, Thompson speaks specifically about the conditions of Palestinian Arab refugee camps. Sadly, in speaking out against Zionism and its conquest and occupation of Palestine, Dorothy Thompson was methodically erased from history.

There is a modern effort to bring back to public light Dorothy’s work in a documentary film entitled “The Silencing – Of Dorothy Thompson” by Alternate Focus. Below is a 4-minute teaser of the upcoming film…


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* * * * * * * * * *

To conclude this 3-part series I want to repeat a quote I often use which makes a point about sources; that is sources of information we accept, or internalize, or prefer, or for better or for worse… take as gospel. It goes like this:

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born
is to remain always a child.”
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

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But those words of wisdom are not enough. How does one learn whether they have been taught and raised by a family, community, and nation that is on the ‘right side of history’? How can one, as can be humanly possible, decide what is right or wrong as a 4-year old? Or a 10-year old, or even a 19-year old? There is probably no one, perfect, across-the-board answer at any select moment of time and place. However, over time and with the evolution of the collective human brains, greater degrees of right and wrong, and almost right and almost wrong do indeed surface. Yes, many of them are through trial and error, but many are also learned through honest in-depth comparing and contrasting. This comparing-contrasting technique should also include subject matter one might find uncomfortable or offensive — this is truer analysis and broader critical-thinking.

There is however, an identifiable flaw or possible flaw in that process.

Through acts of violence, death, and literal or metaphorical cutting-out-tongues or amputating the ability to write, and so on, that could or does distort history and data which then leads to contaminated conclusions — it becomes even HARDER to decipher ‘the full real story‘. Why? Most often history is written by the Victors and one must dig deeper, literally and metaphorically, to hear, read, and digest the “losers” side of the story. Not too many people I know care to do that sort of legwork-homework.

Coming full circle now, on the historical subject of Easter/Eostre weekend at Starbucks in Part I and then the expansive factors and influences of WWI and WWII Zionist activities and counter-activities for the planned creation of Israel in Part II and III, we’ve discovered a broader lesser-known backdrop (if any at all) of modern Middle Eastern affairs, turmoil, and continued conflict. Obtaining this wider vivid picture created from high-zoom capabilities with multi-colored, multi-textured, multi-layered, more accurate honest representations cannot be achieved with one single camera, from one single angle, or one single frame. One must explore. One must experiment, usually multiple times, to capture the perfect image.

I dare say that my well-intended but very misinformed Fundy-Evangelist that evening at Starbucks likely “faithfully” believed one image, one angle from one camera was all his life and America needed when it came to world politics, religion and terrorism. Please, please don’t make that mistake! Completing difficult intensive homework in school or college should never stop after the graduation.

I welcome any thoughts or questions below. Otherwise, thank you for reading these three rather long extensive posts.

Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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