The Zionist Party in the USA

A rather brief, albeit synthetic, new article has been published by US sociologist James Petras, describing the reality of the Zionist Lobby or, as he prefers to call it, the Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) in the USA. A must-read.

James Petras, The State and Local Bases of Zionist Power in America (PDF).

The ZPC, a true political party on its own right, even if it works within both mainstream US electoral machines, can hence be divided in two sections: the government section (presence of key operatives in strategic positions in the government) and the mass movement section (the activities of local Zionist organizations affiliated with mainstream Jewish organizations and religious orders).

They are organized into 52 organizations, associated in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CoP or Presidents' Conference for short), an institution promoted by Eisenhower in the 1950s.

The grassroots membership ranges from several hundred thousand militants in the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) to one hundred thousand wealthy contributors, activists and power brokers in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

AIPAC, the most visible and impressive face of the Zionist Party, is special in the sense that, as we learn from Wikipedia, its board of directors is the same as that of the CoP, so there is no real distinction between both.

In addition scores of propaganda mills, dubbed think tanks, have been established by million dollar grants from billionaire Zionists including the Brookings Institute (Haim Saban) and the Hudson Institute among others. Scores of Zionist funded political action committees (PAC) have intervened in all national and regional elections, controlling nominations and influencing election outcomes. Publishing houses, including university presses have been literally taken over by Zionist zealots, the most egregious example being Yale University, which publishes the most unbalanced tracts parroting Zionist parodies of Jewish history (Financial Times book review section August 28/29 2010). (...) Jewish billionaires and the Israeli state foot the bill.

The activities of the mass movement section are impressive: from recruiting and indoctrinating young Jewish students, favoring selected sympathizers in ethnic minorities... to directly influencing US foreign (and maybe domestic) policy in favor of a foreign power (Israel) by means of the most powerful lobby in Washington D.C. (and every other seat of power).

Petras' dissension with Chomsky goes open:

Those who deny Zionist power over US Mid East foreign policy are left-Zionists namely Noam Chomsky and his acolytes.

I must say that I became really aware of the oppression of Palestine and, crucially, of how the media impacts our perceptions of the world by means of selectively highlighting or hiding information and by means also of the choice of words, by a booklet of Chomsky more than 20 years ago. However, it is very true that Chomsky does not want to fully accept the criminal (colonialist, genocidal, imperialist) nature of the state of Israel nor he admits to the importance of the Zionist Party in the political and media reality, specially in the USA.

Back to the main theme:

Zionist policymakers in strategic positions depend on the political backing and work closely with their counterparts in the “lobbies” (AIPAC) in Congress and in the national and local Jewish Zionist organizations. Many of the leading Zionist policymakers rose to power through a deliberate strategy of infiltrating the government to shape policy promoting Israel’s interest over and above the interests of the US populace.

This is critical to understand. Indeed all lobbies have to some extent this potential and now and then do exert it successfully but the influence of the Zionist Lobby can only be said to be all pervading. Not just Jews (most of them Zionist) are disproportionately represented in all sectors of power but most non-Jews in such positions are also Zionists and may have needed the blessing of the ZPC to reach such offices.

Additionally foreign relations of a sovereign country, specially if this country is the only global superpower, are supposed to take place essentially through diplomatic channels and not via internal lobbies/parties/networks. Sure that there is room for the cultural and even political recognition of minorities within a state's border but these are not supposed to significantly influence foreign policy, which is first of all, the external projection of the country's own interests. In fact, it is technically illegal to act as an agent of a foreign power in the USA as the Israel Party does.

Not that such a technical legal issue means much, it seems.

Interestingly:

In 2004, AIPAC successfully pressured the Bush Administration to create the office of Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (UTFI) and to name its protégé Princeton graduate Stuart Levey to that position. Before, but especially after his appointment, Levey was in close collaboration with the Israeli state and was known as an over the top Zionist zealot with unbounded energy and blind worship of the Israeli state.

I had not heard this name before, I will try to remember it.

But, as said above, it's not just Washington what matters. The Zionist Party could not achieve its goals without a much wider network of strategical control and pressure.

Other active divisions of the ZPC mentioned are active at all local and intermediate levels. A key sector is of course the media, full of Zionist propaganda, Zionist investors, Zionist CEOs and Zionist journalists.

The level of infiltration the Senate subpoenaed Zionist documents in the 1960’s reveal has multiplied a hundred fold over the past 50 years in terms of financing, paid functionaries and committed militants and above all in structural power and coercive capability.

They have whole networks of committed activists sending mails and writing opinions for all levels of media influence and policymaking, they organize Zionist speeches with no second opinions and make all they can to impede anti-Zionist acts or impose a Zionist counterpart.

Local militant Zionist is very strong and powerful:

Local Zionist functionaries form rapid response committees to visit and threaten any local publisher and editorial staff publishing editorials or articles questioning the Israeli party line. Local leaders police (“monitor”) all local meetings, speaker invitations, as well as the speeches of public commentators, religious leaders and academics to detect any “anti-Zionist overtones’ (which they label “covert anti-Semitism”).

From the Conclusions section:

The power of Israel in the US does not reside only in the influence and leadership of powerful Washington based “pro-Israel lobbies”, like AIPAC. Without the hundreds of thousands of militant locally based dentists, podiatrists, stockbrokers, real estate brokers, professors and others, the “lobby” would be unable to sustain and implement its policy among hundreds of millions of Americans outside the major metropolises. As we have seen from the Senate declassified documents, over a half-century ago, local Zionist organizations began a systematic campaign of penetration, control and intimidation that has reached its pinnacle in the first decade of the 21st century.

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Over the decades, the distinction between Zionist power exercised by a “lobby” outside the government and operatives “inside” the government has virtually vanished.

However Petras warns that this growing power relies on shaky grounds, as most US Jews now marry outside the ethnic community and are therefore less likely to support the colonial state of Israel and its continuous policy of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, specially not fanatically and acritically. For that reason they are more and more aggressive in recruiting anyone with Jewish ancestry or relations but they have also colluded with the US extreme right, as has become very apparent in the "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy.

In this sense I must say that they are actually inciting a new form of Antisemitism: the so-called Islamophobia.

A Spanish version of Petras' article is available at La Haine, site that also hosts his repository of articles in both English and Spanish languages.

Financial madness: how they rob us in daylight and how things will only get worse

There is an interesting spat of economic articles at Global Research these days. Really too much for me to fully understand and analyze but indeed enough to get me on my toes because no one of them is the least hopeful.


The Goldman Sachs ripoff

Maybe the most visible to the usual media reader/watcher/listener is the new Goldman Sachs scandal, analyzed by Patrick O'Connor and Barry Grey at The Goldman Sachs Indictment. They blame the Zionist corporation of precipitating the collapse of the housing bubble in their benefit and they say that GS is going to get out of this one with just a fine, a drop on the ocean of what they robbed, largely because the Obama administration is largely made up with their men. Only one real person is indicted, a 31 years old junior trader, while the infamous GS CEO, Mr. Blankfein, nor their customer, Paulson Inc., are named in the cause.

Their actions—exhibiting an insatiable and manic drive for personal enrichment—have produced devastating consequences for tens of millions of ordinary people, not only in the United States, but around the world. Millions have lost their jobs, their homes and their life savings. Untold numbers of young people have lost their chance for a college education. Untold numbers of old people have been driven into poverty and an early death.

And Reagan, the prophet of late Capitalism, said that "greed is good"... What do you think? Good for whom?

This same story is also dealt with in another article by Robert Scheer. He begins with rough words:

The story of the financial debacle will end the way it began, with the super-hustlers from Goldman Sachs at the center of the action and profiting wildly. Never in U.S. history has one company wielded such destructive power over our political economy, irrespective of whether a Republican or a Democrat happened to be president.

At least the robber barons of old built railroads and steel mills, whereas Goldman Sachs makes its money placing bets on people losing their homes. On Tuesday, Goldman announced a 91 percent jump in profit to $3.46 billion for the quarter, while the dreams of millions of families continue to be foreclosed and unemployment hovers at 10 percent because of a crisis that that very company did much to cause.

And ends with even more discouraging words:

It is insulting to the spirit of populist revolt, which has been fundamental to the success of America’s grand experiment in democracy, that a fat-cat Republican-funded tea party revolt is now the vessel of popular anti-Wall Street discontent. That vessel ought to be our president, who campaigned as a champion of the common people.

Certainly Machiavelli himself would scold Obama badly. His ideal prince would cut the GS head quickly before more damage is made and also to score in popular support, which for Machiavelli is a critical asset for any leader worth that name (and who wants to stay as leader).


Mafianomics

I borrowed this subtitle from Mafianomics by Michael Werbowski. You thought the GS ripoff is bad enough? Well, I'm really sad to inform you that it is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg: the system is rotten to the core.

But Werbowski is kind of soft and imprecise: he complains about how bad is today's capitalist speculation and how immoral is profit for the sake of it, regardless of the pain it causes to society. But for a Red like myself this sounds a bit like idealizing some sort of cavalier feudalism or benevolent slavery and complaining that reality never meets the ideal. Capitalism is that way: rotten scam and organized robbery from the beginning. You should know better.

More interesting and detailed is the article by Ellen Brown titled Computerized front-running and financial fraud. Here we are placed in front of the daily reality of the mafioso scam.

It was initially just a patented program to take on the role of the specialist (the specialized brokers that are the pillars of the stock market) and make it more efficient and faultless. But, after the dot.com crash, the patent had to be sold and ended up in the "wrong hands": a private investment corporation. The program was hence altered to do exactly the opposite of what it was supposed to do: to take advantage of stock market weaknesses. This would have been illegal in EU but seems to be legal in the USA. Also other 132 such "improvements" have been patented after the original one by Keiser.

So nowadays there is a whole array of broker companies taking advantage, thanks to supercomputers, of mere instants in data transmission and processing to make their own speculative bids and ripoff everybody else, who do not have such means.

The details are even more complex and I'd say interesting and, of course, Goldman Sachs is denounced as the ring leader of this mafia, but you better read the original article to get the whole picture.


The new financial bubble.

Another rather worrisome piece is the article by Washington's Blog titled Are interest rate derivatives a ticking time bomb? Here we can read about one of the methods of institutional ripoff by well organized financial mafias and what is seemingly another bubble that will soon blow out on our faces.

What are interest rate derivatives? I could not get a clear idea, sincerely. It is a complex financial instrument designed to hedge financial risks. But, as the article states clearly, people tend to overestimate their ability to understand complex financial instruments. So I won't be so arrogant when even the bosses of the credit default swap scandal had no idea what they were dealing with. I'll better admit my own ignorance.

But whatever they are it is important to understand that they are based on notional values (i.e. the money on which they are based never really changes hands: it's essentially an accountancy tool) and that's the only way the derivatives' market is ten times the size of the global GDP. In other words, while the real economy (more or less, as GDP has some flaws too) amounts to 60-70 trillion USD, the derivatives' market is estimated in 600 trillion.

If that's not a bubble you tell me what is it.

The authors admit that, in theory, these complex financial instruments are designed to keep the balance of the scales but they also warn that theory and practice may not go hand by hand. And when George Soros himself warns against them, then it really gets worrisome:

I must state at the outset that I am in fundamental disagreement with the prevailing wisdom. The generally accepted theory is that financial markets tend toward equilibrium and, on the whole, discount the future correctly. I operate using a different theory, according to which financial markets cannot possibly discount the future correctly because they do not merely discount the future; they help to shape it. In certain circumstances, financial markets can affect the so-called fundamentals which they are supposed to reflect. When that happens, markets enter into a state of dynamic disequilibrium and behave quite differently from what would be considered normal by the theory of efficient markets. Such boom/bust sequences do not arise very often, but when they do they can be very disruptive, exactly because they affect the fundamentals of the economy…

The trouble with derivative instruments is that those who issue them usually protect themselves against losses by engaging in so-called delta, or dynamic, hedging. Dynamic hedging means, in effect, that if the market moves against the issuer, the issuer is forced to move in the same direction as the market, and thereby amplify the initial price disturbance. As long as price changes are continuous, no great harm is done, except perhaps to create higher volatility, which in turn increases the demand for derivatives instruments. But if there is an overwhelming amount of dynamic hedging done in the same direction, price movements may become discontinuous. This raises the specter of financial dislocation. Those who need to engage in dynamic hedging, but cannot execute their orders, may suffer catastrophic losses.

This is what happened in the stock market crash of 1987. (...)

There is much more but you better read it yourself.

Imaz: key player in pro-Spanish Basque politics.

I remember very well how the now defunct magazine Ardi Beltza (dedicated to research journalism and hence one of the first victims of the Neoinquisitorial process that began 1998) denounced Josu Jon Imaz as "the man of the Zionist Lobby in the Basque Country".

By that time he was already a rising star within the institutional Basque Nationalist Party (EAJ-PNV), that has a soft nationalist discourse but a mere regionalist praxis and which has ruled the region for the last many decades, benefitting from polarization. He became a key member of the Western Basque autonomous government in 1999 and in 2004 he managed to reach the highest position of the ruling party, representing the "moderate" faction.

In 2008 he left for a private (formerly public) company, Petronor, part of the Repsol-YPF corporation, and curiously after an important share (15%) was acquired by Argentine investor Enrique Eskenazi (not sure how Zionist is this guy but the surname is obviously Jewish, so probably a lot, considering he's also a major international investor).

He has kept a low profile since then but he remains quite obviously influential (his ultra-soft current remains in control of PNV, he managed to persuade Athletic football club to accept the sponsorship of his company).

This peculiar far-reaching influence of Josu Jon, as he is often called "affectively", is now again on the spot after he has been apparently appointed as advisor (along with several other high-profile capitalists - but no labor unionists) of the undemocratically elected new Lehendakari, Patxi López (unionist, PSE-PSOE). His party has declined to comment on grounds that is a private activity (is it?)

Gara newspaper dwells on the matter today, including the protest of major labor union LAB against such a spat of corporative appointments, and notices that the unionist proconsul López has several times declared his admiration for Imaz, whom he considers one of "those nationalists we have always had understanding with in the past, and will have in the future".

The newspaper also recalls how Imaz was the head of the representation at the last political negotiations at Loiola, in 2006, and how he seconded the breakup of them by the Socialist Party, ruling in Spain then and now. López has also used the figure of "moderate" Imaz against that of "radical" Juan José Ibarretxe (last democratically elected Lehendakari), much more popular for the electors, obviously. Imaz in turn has got absolutely no problem in showing up along the undemocratic new local ruler in spite of remaining a member, and a very influential one, of the Nationalist Party, now forced to be mere opposition, after some 12-18% of the electors have been deprived of their civic rights.

For me he's nothing but an opportunist squirrel but it seems that he holds some very unusual leverage.

The Zionist Power in th USA

James Petras, the man who first denounced Obama as "the First Jewish President" (meaning he's totally sold to the Zionists) has another article online on this crucial issue affecting global politics and very specially regional politics of the Middle East and domestic politics in the USA.

James Petras, Bended Knees: Zionist Power in American Politics.

(Shouldn't be "bent knees"? Some native English-speaker please clarify this to me).

Petras mentions that maybe more than 50% US Jews are not active Zionists, many being even harshly critical of Israel and the Lobby. However the remainder are fanatic militants of a well organized network that has extended control over US economy and media, and is highly structured, both sectorially and geographically (and not just in the USA, of course) with their goal being not their country's but those of a foreign power: Israel.

Too long to excerpt here but a must read.

Was the Madoff network Zionist laundry rather than a mere scam?

Joachim Martillo comments at EAAZI on the newly known ramifications of Madoff's network that involve two Jewish "philanthropists", one of them already "mysteriously dead":

What we're seeing is the tip of the iceberg of a network of Jewish 'philanthropists' whose job it was to funnel money into the Madoff organization, and then take the money back out mostly for the purposes of moving it to Israel for Zionist causes. The biggest 'victims' were anything but victims, and the focus on Madoff is an intentional diversion. The reason Bernie owned up so quickly was to protect the network. Picower had probably been talking about doing some sort of deal with the Feds, knew too much, and so had to die to protect the greater Zionist cause.

I have already mentioned in the past that I suspect that this "scam" is much more than it appears. Otherwise it would have not gone ignored for so long. An imperial-level mafia laundry makes much better sense: this is not a few people plot - it's just too powerful, too well connected... and too much money has vanished in it.

Palestinian and Latin American media already echoed back then rumors about all of Madoff's money having gone to Israel.
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Would a Peace Nobel veto sanctions against criminal Israel?

Indeed if that one is Barack Obama.

And the Norwegian prize has covered itself in shame with this year's decision of giving it to the US President Obama only because he sells "hope" and "change" well, talks smoother and looks smarter than his extremist cowboy predecessor.

The first test of the validity of this wishful thinking Nobel prize is precisely now at the UN, as the Goldstone Report, denouncing some of the criminal brutality of the occupying power in Gaza Strip this past winter, brutality that continues every single day, as the nuclear residues cause mutations and the rebuilding aid is systematically blocked at the ghetto's checkpoints. As the report makes its way through the General Assembly, the US threatens with veto, showing again that justice and human rights don't matter in the agenda of the Empire but only what Israel and the Zionist Lobby wish.

By the way, some days ago Joachim Martillo wrote at Ethnic Ashkenazim Agains Zionism, explaining that the Lobby's GDP is the size of that of large power like the UK or France, more than 2 trillion USD, without the liabilities of running a state, what in his opinion makes the GDP effectively 10 times larger or more. For comparison the US GDP is of 14 trillion dollars, and a good deal of it belongs to the Lobby anyhow.

But there are some timid signs that the all-encompasing influence of Zionism in the West is weakening. Recently Sweden rejected to bow to Zionist pressure to persecute a newspaper that denounced Israeli crimes, and later they rejected the visit of the particularly extremist Zionist foreign minister Avigador Liebermann. Now Turkey has snubbed Israel, by swiftly discarding them from a NATO military exercise, what has brought the Zionists to ponder if they can count on their traditional Turkish allies anymore.

The Zionists still have the money and lots of power but some are feeling the potentially greater pressure of the public shame that comes from association with such overtly racist criminals. Or maybe is that even among politicians there are some who still have a bit of dignity.

But Obama is certainly not among those. He has fulfilled so far the more pessimistic analysis that I could read upon his ascenssion, betraying the people that supported him, not reverting or investigating the criminal policies of his predecessor for the most part, keeping the sanctions against Cuba and anyone who dares to trade with them, and also keeping the criminal association with the Zionist apartheid regime up to the point of vetoing a clearly objective and neutral report that happens to condemn Israel for some of its worst criminal practices, widely denounced worldwide. Practices that have in fact backfired in the public opinion arena much further than Zionists would ever have expected, clouted as they are in the extreme arrogance that too powerful people and gangs often fall into.

But practices that are still active for the most part, causing the slow death of Gazans and continuing with the daily ethnic cleansing of other parts of Palestine.

Criminal practices and criminal nature that we can't but denounce once and again until the apartheid regime itself falls.

We shall overcome.
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"Antisemitism" (cartoon)

An image again worth more than 1000 words, especially if those words begin with "anti-" and end with "-semitism":



Taken from DesertPeace. Toon by Carlos Latuff (copyleft).

Also here there is an interesting list by Joachim Martillo of the absolutely disproportionate of (Zionist) Jews in the US high economic circles. How can a minority that is 2% of the population hold like 60% of all key economic posts? He argues for nationalization, what seems much more logical than giving taxpayers' money to a bunch of corrupt bankers who are not just economically but also morally bankrupt.
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French Israel Lobby deposes subprefect

If anybody still doubts of the immense power of the Israel Lobby, in the USA as in Europe and elsewhere, this may make them to think again. Bruno Guigue is a French intellectual (political writer) specialized in the Middle East. He was named sous-préfet (subprefect or vicegovernor) of Saintes in 2007 by a conservative government. In March 13 he published an article critical with the Israel Lobby and its arrogant attitude towards the UN, and also critical of Israeli war crimes in the occupied territories.

In March 18, Luc Rosenzweig, columnist of Libération, attacked this article, acusing Guigue (gratuitously) of antisemitism. Two days later Interior Minister, Michèlle Alliot-Marie, deposed him.

Roszenweig has also been involved in previous outrageous defense of Israeli crimes, when he argued that the murder of 12 year old, Mohammed al Durah, widely denounced in the press worldwide, was actually perpetrated by Palestinians. He's an evident political hitman of the Israel Lobby.

It may sound incredible to some but the real painful fact is the the Israel Lobby, as James Petras has denounced in the context of the USA, is not just a regular lobby but has the very unique power of dictating the policies of most Western countries, at least in regard to the Middle East. This includes censorship and persecution of dissident anti-Israeli opinions (often with gratuitous accusations of "antisemitism") and the framing of wars and colonialist invasions such as that of Iraq.

Source: Bruno Guigue: Ma faute ? Avoir heurté de plein fouet la doxa occidentale (also Spanish language version at Rebelión) and French Wikipedia.