Syria, Israel Letterbox Operation

by Maggie at Maggie’s Notebook

On July 5, 2005 I posted on the U.S. and Syria closing ranks to neutralize Israel. That report indicated that the U.S. and Saudia Arabia were pressing Syrian President Bashar Assad to demarcate Syria’s borders with Lebanon. It’s a conundrum but it can be explained. At the time, I predicted that the demarcation and the hoped-for result would not happen. Here’s some more of the story:

Syria, Israel

The DEBKAfile says that President Assad traveled to Baku, Azerbaijan and received communications from Israel president, Shimon Peres and prime minister Benjaman Netanyahu. Baku is considered a “new channel of communications,” and a “hub of a complicated new negotiating track between Damascus and Jerusalem,” and is being referred to as the “Azeri diplomatic postbox,” or the Israel-Syrian letterbox.

Also in this mix with the U.S. is Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon. Middle East Envoy George Mitchell is standing in for Barack Obama.

President Assad’s reply will be sent to Jerusalem on Thursday or Friday. The problem is we don’t know what Assad is replying to, other than the words “peace process” appearing in the DEBKAfile post.

So if the bottom-line of the letterbox operation is a “peace process,” how might that come about?
My post of July 5th might answer that question and I’m reposting it below. Let me know what you think. As I said, earlier this month I predicted that it was a fantasy - not going to happen. Now, it seems we have Israel contacting Syria.

*****

U.S Syria Relations Cozy: Neutralizing Israel
Maggie’s Notebook - July 5, 2009

Syrian president Bashar Assad has invited President Obama to visit Damascus, in the wake of a U.S.-Saudi press for Syria to “demarcate” its border with Lebanon. By marking the Syrian border and giving up its claims to Shaba Farms, also known as Mount Dov, and placing Mount Dov inside Lebanon’s borders, the reasoning is that Israel will have no rationale to claim the militarily strategic Mount Dov, and so Hizbullah will also have no reason to attack Israel. The move is on to neutralize Israel.

Syria, Israel - Shebaa Farms - Mount Dove (photo)

It’s a fantasy - it’s not going to happen.

For those who have forgotten, Israel liberated Mount Dov from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War. Lebanon claims that Mount Dov belongs to it, and Hezbullah uses Israel’s ‘occupation’ of Mount Dov as proof that Israel is ‘occupying’ ‘Lebanese territory’ thereby justifying its existence in Lebanon. The US claims that if Syria demarcates its border with Lebanon, and puts Mount Dov on the Lebanese side of the border, it will take away Hezbullah’s raison d’etre (see map below).

It’s a bit shocking to know that in 2009, there are countries without official borders.

Israel took over the area in 1967 and sees it as part of the Golan Heights. The UN accepted this position following the IDF’s pullout from Lebanon in May 2000 but Hezbollah and Lebanon claim that this is Lebanese territory still under Israeli occupation.

From Israel’s long-time point-of-view, Shaba (Shebaa) Farms (Mount Dov) has been off the table for discussion.

What are the issues?

In the 1923 Anglo-French Demarcation Agreement, which set the borders between the British and French mandates in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, the area was included in Syria. The maps of the 1949 Israeli-Syrian Armistice Agreements similarly designated the area as Syrian.

In the 1967 Six Day War, the farms were occupied by the IDF as part of its conquest of the Golan Heights. Lebanon was not involved in that war, and Israel did not engage in any fighting against it.

At that time, no one - neither Syria nor Lebanon - claimed that the area was Lebanese.

IN THE negotiations leading to the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, Lebanon for the first time raised its claim to the farms, but based on all previous historical documents and maps, the UN sided with the Israeli version, i.e. that this was Syrian territory and subject to future Israeli-Syrian negotiations. The Lebanese claim was used by Hizbullah to continue its resistance to “Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory.

At the time of the 2000 Israeli withdrawal the UN asked Syria about its position on the issue. Damascus was in a quandary: On the one hand, this was obviously Syrian territory; on the other, if Syria conceded that the farms belong to Lebanon, there might be a chance of getting one more sliver of Arab territory out of Israeli hands.

Syria thus responded that whatever its former claims to the Shaba Farms, it now agreed to cede them to Lebanon.

But when the UN asked Damascus for a formal document stating that the area had indeed been legally transferred to Lebanon, Syria balked - and it has still not supplied such a document.

The short story is that Syria has refused to recognize Lebanon as a sovereign state. Not until this year did Syria appoint it’s first ever ambassador to Beirut. At the same time, Lebanon sent its first ambassador to Syria.

Damascus still has powerful allies in Lebanon, including Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shi’ite party with a powerful guerrilla army.

The U.S. has pressured Israel to withdraw from Mount Dov for years.

The area is a 100 square mile parcel of land located at the foot of Mount Hermon where the Syrian, Lebanese and Israeli borders meet. Israel took control of the area after the Six Day War in 1967, and since then has built up a number of military outposts on the strategic hills.

Israel’s indefensible borders on all sides have led to the necessary land-grabs gained in the 1967 war. How can you defend your people when your enemies refuse to respect your border towns? This 2006 report describes the importance of not letting your enemy bite at your heels:

The drive up to the top of Mt. Dov on Wednesday is done along a narrow and winding road, accessible only in armored vehicles, a memory of Hizbullah’s incessant shelling of IDF outposts there not so long ago.

The Gladiola outpost is situated just over the Lebanese village of Shuba with a clear view of Ghajar, as well. Soldiers man heavily-fortified positions along the ridge, keeping an eye on the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) patrols below.

Strangely enough, during the war this summer, the Mt. Dov area was quiet, and saw nearly no fighting. According to the officer, the explanation is simple - Hizbullah does not attack military bases, since they know that in such a situation they will lose.

The importance of the area to Israel is clear:

Since the war in Lebanon, the IDF has invested millions of shekels in fixing the infrastructure along the mountain - from repaving the winding road to installing new antennas and surveillance equipment.

The officer said the soldiers stationed in the series of outposts along the mountain play a key role in assisting the IDF to form accurate assessments of Hizbullah’s plans.

The purpose of the powerful Hizbullah in Lebanon is to protest the Mount Dov possession by Israel, claiming that the land belongs to Lebanon.

Hizbullah’s attempt to claim sovereignty of Mt. Dov is because the group needs an excuse for its existence,” he said. “Otherwise, they are worthless.”

Israel Matzav questions any notion of Syria’s abandonment of Hizbullah and says this:

Engagement’ is one thing and giving up real assets (even if the asset is only a claim) is something else. Mount Dov is a very strategic point that is used for military purposes by Israel.

Why would the Syrians want to let Lebanon have it?

What is Lebanon giving them in return?

…even if Israel were to hand Mount Dov over to Lebanon tomorrow, Hezbullah would continue to exist and would continue to charge Israel with ‘occupying Lebanese territory.’

So what is the U.S. doing? Should Syria mark their border and place Mount Dov in Lebanon’s hands, and Israel acknowledge that border and abandon the area, how can Israel be rightly convinced that the position would not once again be used against the people of Israel? Could a treaty between Israel and Syria be achieved? Would such a treaty mean safety for Israel? There is no way for Israel to be rightly convinced. This has been a U.S. endeavor through the Bush years. The U.S. should not ask Israel to enter into such an agreement. Afterall, had Israel’s neighbors respected their sovereignty, the 1967 War would not have happened.

I believe that if the U.S. and the free world would wholeheartedly and very publicly back Israel, Hamas and Hizbullah would be defeated by the very notion that the west would assist Israel’s defense of its own borders. It’s very simple. Actively support the right of the Israeli people to exist…but rather than follow such a justifiable position, we quake at the wrath of the Muslim world. The thing we seem to ignore is that living inside that Muslim world is a sovereign non-Muslim nation. Where is the justification for the Muslim rejection of these people?

So what do you think? Can these two stories possibly connected?

More Obama Broken Promises: Presidential Signing Statements

by Maggie at Maggie's Notebook

One thing I know is true (one of Obama's favorite transitions) is...the campaign trail is a lying, cheating road to the Oval Office for four more years of lying and cheating. Congress has rebuked President Obama's Presidential Signings.

Thanks to Stop the ACLU.

This was then...

Obama on Presidential Signing

“What George Bush has been trying to do as part of his effort to accumulate more power in the presidency is he’s been saying ‘well I can basically change what Congress passed by attaching a letter saying I don’t agree with this part or I don’t agree with that part,” Obama said last year during a campaign stop. “I’m gonna’ choose to interpret it this way or that way.’ That’s not part of his power. But this is part of the whole theory of George Bush that he can make laws as he’s going along. I disagree with that. I taught the constitution for 10 years. I believe in the constitution, and I will obey the Constitution of the United States.
“We’re not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress.”

This is now:

The House rebuked President Obama for trying to ignore restrictions to international aid payments, voting overwhelmingly for an amendment forcing the administration to abide by its constraints.

House members approved an amendment by a 429-2 vote to have the Obama administration pressure the World Bank to strengthen labor and environmental standards and require a Treasury Department report on World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) activities. The amendment to a 2010 funding bill for the State Department and foreign operations was proposed by Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), but it received broad bipartisan support.

The conditions on World Bank and IMF funding were part of the $106 billion war supplemental bill that was passed last month. Obama, in a statement made as he signed the bill, said that he would ignore the conditions. They would “interfere with my constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations by directing the Executive to take certain positions in negotiations or discussions with international organizations and foreign governments, or by requiring consultation with the Congress prior to such negotiations or discussions,” Obama said in the signing statement.

Hat tip: Hot Air

End Stop the ACLU

The Hill went on to report:

Senior Democrats and Republicans railed against the notion that the president could ignore a law they had passed and he had signed.

"We do this not just on behalf of this institution, but on behalf of this democracy," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). "There's kind of a unilateralism, an undemocratic, unreachable way about these signing statements."

Frank and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) said that one way they could get presidents to stop issuing signing statements casting aside laws would be to refuse to fund their priorities. The amendment passed Thursday seeks to nullify Obama's signing statement by withholding funds from any agreement involving the Treasury Department that doesn't follow the conditions set out in the supplemental bill.

"The signal we send to the Treasury is very clear: Ignore statute at your peril," Kirk said.

Case Against Professor William Robinson Dismissed

Cross-posted by Gary Fouse
fousesquawk



UC Santa Barbara


The University of California at Santa Barbara has recently been embroiled in a controversy over sociology Professor William Robinson after he sent an e-mail to his students with images that compared the state of Israel to Nazis. Two offended students complained and an investigation was launched as to whether Robinson had abused his position to advance his personal views. Recently, the UC Academic Senate cleared Robinson.


June 24, 2009

TO: Prof. William Robinson
Department of Sociology

FR: Gene Lucas
Executive Vice Chancellor

Re: Charges Committee Findings

"I have received the report of the Charges Committee regarding charges brought against you. The Committee did not find probable cause to undertake disciplinary action in this matter.

I have accepted the findings of the Charges Committee. Accordingly, this matter is now terminated

Under the Campus Procedures for Enforcement of the Faculty Code of Conduct, "the complainant and/or faculty member complained against may request, in writing, from the Charges Officer, a summary of the Committee's findings." If you would like such a summary, please make such a request to Prof. Scharleman, the Charges Officer."

(Huffington Post)
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Amid the turmoil and intimidation that many Jewish students have encountered on several UC campuses as a result of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the issue of Robinson's free speech was upheld.

However, as an adjunct teacher at UCI, I would like to make a comment. What Robinson did is not new on US university campuses. Many professors routinely attempt to indoctrinate their students as to their own personal point of view. Some even go so far as to ridicule students in class who disagree and penalize them in grading. (I don't know if Robinson falls into that category or not.) In my view, it is unprofessional for a teacher to try and impose his or her personal political views on students in the classroom-or in the course of teaching their class-such as e-mails to students comparing Israelis to Nazis. I know a lot of academics disagree with me, but that's my opinion. While I have obtained a certain amount of notoriety on the UC Irvine campus for expressing my views in forums outside the classroom, such as rallies and letters to the campus newspaper-I always try to keep my personal views out of the classroom (English as a second language). And don't think a language classroom can't be infected with political opinions-as I learned while studying French with one professor at California State University at Los Angeles in the 1960s.

My students have no idea what I think of the world, and I feel no need to share it with them. I view my job as helping them improve their English. They are young adults from various nations and backgrounds with their own life experiences and world views, which I treat with respect. I do not view it as part of my mission to teach my students what they should think of the world. To do so, in my view, is downright unprofessional.

Two Arabs Discuss the Worth of the Arab Civilization

by Maggie at Maggie's Notebook

This is a conversation you are likely never to hear again. Two Arab men discuss the worth of the Arab civilization.

Anwar Malek is the second man to speak. He is the Algerian author of "A Flood of Corruption and the Advance of bin Laden in Algeria. The book has been confiscated and disappeared from reality. His first mistake: using an Arab publisher. No...maybe his first mistake was not getting to safety before making the remarks you will hear in this video.

For just a taste of what's to come: The first interviewer says 73% of our viewers believe that Arabs constitute a great power and have the power to be influential, and so on. Malek responds that those viewers are afflicted with "fantasies and obsolete bravado." False and empty bravado. The Arabs invented or discovered the zero - but what did they do with it? Today the Arabs constitute nothing but thousands of zeros to the left....there is nothing to suggest that the Arabs can be relied upon to produce anything. It just gets better from there.


Thanks to Always On Watch who has some good commentary and additional sources.

Iran Protests Again! 10th Anniversary of Tehran University Murders

by Maggie at Maggie's Notebook

Today on the anniversary of the 1999 Iranian protests of the murders of Iranian students at Tehran University, renewed protests of the June 12 election are revived on the streets of Iran. After warnings from the government that any uprising prompted by the 1999 anniversary would be met with "crushing response," Iranians took to the street anyway.

Tehran University
(photo from December 2007 protest)

After 11 days of agitated calm, thousands of protesters massed in central Tehran at about 5 p.m. on Thursday evening, Tehran time. Police used batons and tear gas against the protesters. While the protest started peacefully:

...the effort to halt the protest quickly turned violent. A middle-age woman ran through the crowd, her coat covered with blood stains. Trash fires burned, cloaking the streets in black smoke, as protesters lobbed rocks at security forces. Two men held a huge floral arrangement of yellow and purple flowers on green leaves aloft through the smoke in commemoration of those killed in the last month and 1999, a witness said.

“Tell the world what is happening here,” one 26-year old engineering student demonstrator said. “This is our revolution. We will not give up.”

Asked what he wanted, he said: “We want democracy.”

For the most part, all journalism and communication has been shut down:

Cellphone messaging was down Thursday for a third straight day, apparently to prevent communication between protesters, while the government closed universities and declared an official holiday Tuesday and Wednesday, ostensibly because Tehran has been shrouded in a heavy dust and pollution cloud, The A.P. said.

Atlas Shrugs has insight about today's uprising and its connections to the 1999 uprising. See how the return of a former prisoner is making a difference in Iran today. Read it here.

What are we to think of the past 11 days of agitated calm? Via Hot Air, Michael Ladeen reports on July 8th, a day before today's protests:

Meanwhile, horribly maimed bodies have been showing up all over the country. Some of the gouging of the bodies seems to have been done to remove all evidence of bullet holes, but whatever the “explanation,” the bloody savagery is well documented.

If you want some detail about the horrors inside Iranian hospitals, have a look at Le Figaro’s account.

Over the objections of medical staff, bodies from the demonstrations were quickly moved elsewhere. “We believe they were transferred to the Baqiatollah military hospital or some other undisclosed location”, notes the doctor. Then, under the pretext of “organ donation”, all traces of bullets were removed from the bodies. “The parents were force to accept this if they wanted to retrieve the body for burial”.

Ladeen talks about the days of quiet:

And yet, the protest goes on. For the past three days, a general strike has been in effect, with significant results. Indeed, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei preemptively admitted defeat when government offices and factories were shut down in the name of a religious observance. But the strikers only expanded the range of their actions, notably by shutting down electrical grids in several cities, including parts of Tehran. Great swathes of the nation were plunged into darkness. This sort of thing is likely to continue, whatever happens on the 9th.

And on the free world and supporting tyrants:

...the so-called Western world, which apparently cannot even bring itself to punish the regime for violating all rules of civilized behavior. Obama, following his familiar pattern of allying himself with the tyrants rather than the democrats, doesn’t want new sanctions. I suppose he’s still hoping that the tyranny will prevail, and then he can make a wonderful deal with Khamenei pere. Or fils, as the case may be.

Read Ladeen's post for sharp insight and see how London's confiscation of $1 billion+ of Iranian money has affected the core of the murderous regime.

The following video is not the best quality but it certainly gives the spirit of the protest.

The Zimbabwean Trillion Dollar Campaign: Celebrating the Freedom of Speech

By Findalis


Hat tip to Crusader Rabbit

Imagine living in a country where the currency is so worthless that a trillion dollars doesn't even buy a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, or even a piece of bubble gum.

Imagine living in that country and the press being silenced. Forced to follow the Party line or face punishment.

Imagine a courageous Newspaper publisher with limited funds and the advertising agency that takes on such a dictator.

This is the life for millions of citizens in Zimbabwe. Hyper-Inflation, loss of civil rights, and a dictator more concerned with his own self than his people.

The Zimbabwean Titanium Trillion Dollar Campaign



View at YouTube

The Zimbabwean Trillion Dollar Campaign celebrates the freedom of speech – and after winning the Grand Prix in the 2009 Disruption Awards the jury at the 2009 Cannes Lions honored the South African campaign with an unseen amount of Cannes Lions: so far three Gold, one Silver and one Grand Prix.

The campaign was designed to raise awareness regarding the plight of The Zimbabwean newspaper and consisted of various creative elements, including a billboard, all made up entirely of Zimbabwean Dollar bank notes. The newspaper, the brainchild of journalists driven into exile, is committed to providing independent and fair comment on Zimbabwe to Zimbabweans, and has had a ‘luxury’ import duty of over 55% added to it by the Mugabe government, thus making it unaffordable to the average Zimbabwean citizen.

Read the full story here.

Robert Gabriel Mugabe is a tyrant. Ruling the nation of Zimbabwe with an Iron Fist, squandering its resources on frivolities, his wife believes that the national treasury is her personal spending account and her shopping trips to Paris, London, Rome, and New York are infamous.

The Mugabes and their cronies live in splendor while their nation suffers. Drought, Cholera, Hunger stalk the nation.

How much longer does the people of Zimbabwe have to suffer at the hands of this tyrant before the International Community cries enough? How much longer do we have to wait before President Barack Obama says something? Or will Mugabe become just another dictator in a line of dictators around the world that Obama will embrace?

The people of Zimbabwe need our voices to be raised, for theirs have been silenced by their tyrant.

If you wish to read the truth from Zimbabwe, you have the opportunity and ability to read The Zimbabwean. It is on-line and free to you. Unlike the millions living in Zimbabwe, you are fortunate to have access to the internet.

The Great Choice Revisited: Michael Jackson and Black America

A note from Radarsite: It is July 7, 2009, and the body of Michael Jackson lies in state, in a golden coffin, reminiscent of some ancient Pharaoh's magnificent sarcophagus. One by one, the black celebrities take the stage to honor the great man's passing. It is perhaps the largest funeral service ever to be held. As ironical as it may be, Michael Jackson has somehow been successfully transformed into the Great Black Hope Fulfilled. Jackson, who obsessively denied his blackness, is now become the champion of blackness. The symbol of righteous black pride. Of black success despite the lies and machinations of the oppressive white race.

As a seventy-two year old white man, who only listens to classical music, it would be ludicrous for me to attempt to write anything meaningful about this man. But I cannot help but observe that, just as that infamous OJ Simpson event had little to do with justice and everything to do with black power, this self-proclaimed momentous event has more to do with racial politics than with music.

Has Black America already made its Great Choice? It certainly appears that way. - rg
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From an original Radarsite article, October 2008.
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Immortal grievances. Impervious to reason, undaunted by facts, the allure of victimhood is, it seems, just too beguiling to abandon. Thus the torch of unmitigated resentment is passed on once again from one oppressed generation of black martyrs to the next. Unquestioned, unchallenged, the roles are once again eagerly embraced, for they are irresistible. The enemy has not yet been vanquished, there are still great battles to be won, so the war must continue. This great heroic struggle must go on until 'the oppression, the suffocating injustice and the ugly racism that exists in our society' is finally and completely eradicated, and the slate is wiped clean.
This then is to be that great vision of change we can believe in. This is to be the new message for a new America. Once again the world around us is to be torn asunder by those 'belligerent victims', driven to abominations by their self-righteous rage.
The enemy has been identified. The banner of black victimhood is on the march. Black America, it seems, is about to make another fateful choice. Here, once again, that choice is defined. For those who have read the original article please just skip the rest.- rg
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Black America: The Great Choice

There may come a time in the life of an individual, or in the life of an entire people, when they are offered a great choice.

Malcolm Little: 22843



Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the American civil rights movement. A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–6) and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1957), serving as its first president. His efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history.
In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent means.
King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. national holiday in 1986.


Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little [pictured in mugshot above]; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was an African American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist. To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans. His detractors accused him of preaching race hatred and violence. He has been described as one of the most influential African Americans of the 20th century.
Between 1953 and 1965, while most black leaders worked in the civil rights movement to integrate black people into mainstream American life, Malcolm X preached independence. He maintained that Western culture, and the Judeo-Christian religious traditions on which it is based, was inherently racist. Constantly ridiculing mainstream civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X declared that nonviolence was the "philosophy of the fool".

In 1976, Haley published Roots: The Saga of an American Family, a novel based loosely on his family's history, starting with the story of Kunta Kinte, kidnapped in Gambia in 1767 and transported to the Province of Maryland to be sold as a slave. Haley claimed to be a seventh-generation descendant of Kunta Kinte, and Haley's work on the novel involved ten years of research, intercontinental travel and writing. He went to the village of Juffure, where Kunta Kinte grew up and which is still in existence, and listened to a tribal historian tell the story of Kinte's capture. Haley also traced the records of the ship, The Lord Ligonier, which he said carried his ancestor to America. Genealogists have since disputed Haley's research and conclusions and Haley made an out-of-court settlement with Harold Courlander, who had sued him for plagiarism.
Roots garnered phenomenal audiences. On average, 80 million people watched each of the last seven episodes. 100 million viewers, almost half the country, saw the final episode, which still claims one of the highest Nielsen ratings ever recorded, a 51.1 with a 71 share. A stunning 85% of all television homes saw all or part of the mini-series. Roots also enjoyed unusual social acclaim for a television show. Vernon Jordan, former president of the Urban League, called it "the single most spectacular educational experience in race relations in America." Over 250 colleges and universities planned courses on the saga, and during the broadcast, over 30 cities declared "Roots" weeks. Roots was eventually published in 37 languages and Haley won a Special Award for it in 1977 from the Pulitzer Board. Roots was also made into a popular television miniseries that year. The film reached a record-breaking 130 million viewers when it was serialized on television. In 1979, ABC aired the sequel miniseries Roots: The Next Generations, which continued the story of Kunta Kinte's descendants.
Some voiced concern, however; especially at the time of the television series that racial tension in America would be aggravated by Roots. While Time did report several incidents of racial violence following the telecast, it commented that most observers thought that in the long term, Roots would improve race relations, particularly because of the televised versions profound impact on whites. A broad consensus seemed to be emerging that Roots would spur black identity, and hence black pride, and eventually pay important dividends. Some black leaders viewed Roots as the most important civil rights event since the 1965 march on Selma, according to Time. Vernon Jordan, executive director of the National Urban League, called it the single most spectacular educational experience in race relations in America.


There may come a time in the life of an individual, or in the life of an entire people when they are offered a great choice. Fundamentally, this choice may be relatively simple: either to honestly accept responsibility for their own lives and their own actions, and seek to improve their lives through hard work and disciplined endeavor; or to make a different (and often the easier choice), one which avoids responsibility for their own lives and their own actions and seeks to improve their lives through viewing themselves as victims, victims of an evil and omnipotent oppressor, the prima facie cause of their suffering.
The alcoholic who accepts responsibility for his problems has a chance of conquering those problems and moving ahead with his life. The alcoholic who continues to blame others for his plight will most likely never recover.

In 1933, the people of Germany were faced with a similar choice. Unfortunately for Germany and the world, they made the wrong choice, they avoided accepting personal responsibility for their own lives and their own actions and chose instead the false comfort of victimhood. How many times has this wounded old world of ours been torn asunder by the self-righteous destruction of these 'belligerent victims'? Has this disingenuous concept of victimhood ever actually achieved anything of lasting value? How many great works have been accomplished by self-perceived victims? When, if ever, has the steady diet of hatred and revenge ever produced a successful people?

Yet, the cynical preachers of victimhood prosper and win new converts daily. And sometimes they succeed in drowning out the voices of the preachers of honesty and wisdom. Dr. Martin Luther King had offered his people a great choice, a choice to embrace his glowing vision, his great and famous dream of hope and fulfillment. And people, people of all colors rallied to his shining dream.
On April 4, 1968 the dream was shot. For some, the vision had been blurred forever. For some, Martin Luther King's death was prima facie evidence of the eternal victimhood of the American blacks.

There was of course another vision out there. Another voice to be heard. A different kind of voice. The fiery voice of a preacher of hate and revenge. The hate-filled voice of the belligerent victim. In response to Reverend King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech, Malcolm X quipped, "While King was having a dream, the rest of us Negroes are having a nightmare."
Thus the plight of the black man in America was not to be seen as the result of their personal actions, or lack of actions, but rather as the result of the criminal subjugation of one people by another, of one race by another. The machinations of the evil and omnipotent oppressor: the ruthless white man.

All great movements need a great myth to rally round and to embody and glorify their mission. For the Third Reich, it was to be that great monumental vision of Aryan supremacy embodied in the soaring ecstatic extremes of Wagnerian drama or in Leni Riefenstahl's glorious propaganda. The great, utterly nonsensical myth of the God-given destiny of the Nordic hero. And of course all myths must have their protagonists, their villains and their monsters, and the convenient monsters of Hitler's grand vision would of course be played by the Eternal Jew, those deadly and conniving Shylocks who had stabbed the noble Aryan warriors in the back in 1918.

The historically undeniable fact that it had been their own magnificent generals, the Hindenburg's and the Ludendorfs, who had pleaded passionately to the Wiemar Government to call an end to the war -- at any price, because the awful alternative would have most assuredly meant the complete and utter destruction of the exhausted and outflanked German Army, and the subsequent invasion and devastation of the homeland, was systematically rewritten and replaced with the new Nordic myth of the monstrous treachery of the weak-kneed Wiemar Government and the underhanded Jews, and thus the inevitable victimhood of the once great German volk.

With the publication of Alex Haley's "Roots" in 1976, and then especially with the remarkably successful television series that followed in it's wake, those American blacks who had chosen the road of victimhood found their own great myth. "Some voiced concern, however; especially at the time of the television series that racial tension in America would be aggravated by Roots." Everything that Malcom X and others had been preaching had seemingly been substantiated, even sanctioned by the highest echelons of the white oppressors themselves. Their great oppression had indeed been vetted and validated, validated as only Hollywood could validate an idea, magnificently, convincingly and dramatically. A monumental myth that Richard Wagner himself would have enthusiastically acclaimed.

The surprisingly successful Civil Rights movements of the Sixties and the subsequent legislative responses incontestably advanced the cause of racial equality more in two or three years than had been achieved in the previous two or three centuries. Those great barred doors had been opened and the road to hope and promise beckoned. Affirmative action promised to level the playing field, and for the most part it actually did. Blacks became more and more integrated into the white world and became more and more 'upwardly mobile'. There were practically no fields of endeavor that were out of their reach. Blacks were entering colleges and universities in record numbers, were entering prestigious previously all-white law firms and major corporations. Television, sports, entertainment, law enforcement, politics, and the military -- there was virtually no occupation precluded from talented and enterprising black aspirants. The good doctor's dream seemed at last to be becoming a reality. The battles, if not all won, were progressing well and the future beckoned.

But that other, darker myth would simply not die. It's message was still too beguiling. It's fiery preachers still to charismatic and inspiring. The baton of hate and revenge had been passed to a new generation of pied pipers, the Sharptons and the Jesse Jacksons, who had never given up on their dark vision of the nightmare. The empty promises of endless victimhood and a total release from the weight of personal responsibility. The hope now was the hope for reparations, all kinds of reparations, social, political, financial. All predicated on the general acceptance of the great myth, not just the acceptance by its purported victims, but by the guilty oppressors themselves .

This, then, was, is, the great choice confronted by a whole new generation of black Americans. Would they accept the vision of the good doctor's golden dream, or embrace the dark nightmare of Malcolm X and the powerful enabling myth of 'Roots'? Would they walk through the open doors of the American Dream, or pull away and form their own separatist group of angry young men? Not angry young Americans anymore, but angry young African-Americans, unwilling or unable to give up the power of their hatred, even at the expense of their hope.

I have little pity for you. There have just been too many other stories in this unfair world of ours, stories of true victims, who have quietly and courageously overcome even greater odds and succeeded in creating a fulfilling life. You who choose to remain fixated on your anger and on your pain will never succeed in bettering your lot, you will only succeed in wreaking more havoc on a already weary world, and crushing the nascent spirit of your innocent children.

In a matter of weeks now we will be facing an important, no, a crucial American election, which will most likely chart the course of this great nation well into the unforeseeable future. The sides have been clearly drawn, the issues are irreconcilable. Once again, we are being offered a great choice, the dream or the nightmare, victimhood or honor, pride or humiliation. Senator Obama's dream is an ignoble appeal to your sense of victimhood, a vision of darkness and disillusionment. The virtual embrace of defeat and hopelessness. It is that same old myth of the perpetual victim and the perpetual oppressor. Those who choose this path will not only weaken their own chances for happiness and self-respect, they will ultimately weaken and further divide this great nation of ours at a time of its utmost peril. For now more than ever we must all come together and all be Americans. Because, once again, this great old wounded world of ours, and this miraculous experiment which is the United States of America is facing the onslaught of a new and fearsome legion of 'belligerent victims'. Victims blindly obsessed by their own great myth, the great savage myth of Islam. And we, the infidels, the American infidels, the black American infidels and the white American infidels are the monsters of their self-righteous myth whom they seek to destroy.

In short, we are in a war for our very lives and there is no more time left for individual self-pity. No more efforts to be wasted on looking for differences between us, which can only weaken us and make us more vulnerable to our ruthless enemies. We are all Americans, you and I, not African-Americans or Mexican-Americans, but just plain Americans, all together, facing a brutal and determined enemy, who could care less about our intramural distinctions or our racial identity crises.

This, then, is our last great choice. Will we get it right this time?

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Entry Page: http://radarsite.blogspot.com/2009/07/great-choice-revisited-michael-jackson.html
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Also see: http://www.nypost.com/seven/10142008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_o_jesse_knows_133450.htm?page=0

Published in Chicago Post Tribune 7/15/09