Vittorio Arrigoni Kidnapped Palestinian Freedom Fighter Found Dead in Gaza

Kidnapped Palestinian Freedom Fighter Found Dead in Gaza

His body was found hours after the Islamist group, Tawhid and Jihad, claimed to be holding him hostage, in exchange for the release of their leader. As of April 15th, the group has released a statement saying that they deny having murdered him, but are pleased to see him dead.

Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian Human Rites activists, who arrived in Gaza with the, Free Gaza, movement. He also wrote for the Italian Newspaper, Il Manifesto, in addition to blogging on Guerrilla Radio.

Porn and Capitalism, We All Sell Ourselves For Money

...just a little.

Exploitation & Porn reflect our society

By Sadie Ryanne.

Mainstream porn is exploitative and degrading. But it’s more complicated than that.

We should be focused on dismantling a society that forces us to sell ourselves, not one particular industry within that society – especially an industry that is currently (for better or worse) the livelihood for some of the most vulnerable people in our culture

A few months ago I signed up for a workshop for sex worker activists at HIPS and presented with the Red Umbrella Project.

It’s called “Personal Storytelling for Social Change” and encourages sex workers to tell their/our stories in the face of widespread ignorance about the realities of sex work.

I see it as claiming space within a dialog that is overwhelmingly dominated by non-sex workers, especially white, middle class, cis [on the same side] Christians and feminists.

So, I was thinking about what I would say about my experience in the industry. Then, my Facebook displayed an advertisement for an organization called “Porn Harms.”

It’s just another group dedicated to exposing the negative impact of porn on women (presumably by perpetuating sexist ideas) and men (presumably by degrading their morality/masculinity).

The website is full of questionable research about how porn is addictive and obligatory appeals to how it “destroys families” and “corrupts children.”

Can porn perpetuate sexist/racist/cissexist/transphobic ideologies? Absolutely.

Is most porn ethically bankrupt? Of course.

Can it be fun and empowering? Sometimes.

Some sex-positive activists — particularly relatively better-off ones who do sex work purely by choice — focus on this last one.

They talk about how porn can be reclaimed, and even make anti-oppressive porn that is by and for female, queer, and trans people. (Can you tell I had a subscription to Crash Pad?)

I think it’s amazing that we have stuff like Doing it Ourselves: The Trans Women Porn Project working to portray trans women’s sexuality in a realistic way, and not based only on some cis guy’s fantasies.

We desperately need more of that. You should probably buy that movie, and then go make your own. (If you want to.)

But the reality is that a lot of mainstream porn is exploitative and degrading. A lot of people do it purely for money. If we only defend porn that is understood as “queer” or “empowering”, we still leave ourselves open to attack from the right and from anti-porn feminists.

If pro-porn activists only focus on queer/liberating porn, the right’s accusations about mainstream porn (and the people who work in it) will go unchallenged.

If we don’t speak explicitly about mainstream porn (the oppressive, cis supremacist kind), they will keep dominating the discourse on this type of porn.

And by extension, the people who depend on it for a livelihood. People who have worked in mainstream porn should be allowed to tell the story from our points of view.

So, yes, mainstream porn is exploitative and degrading. But it’s more complicated than that.

This got me thinking about other shit I’ve done to survive under a capitalist economy. I would say all of it is exploitative and degrading in some way or another.

Under a capitalist economy, we’re all forced to sell ourselves somehow. Judging or focusing on one group of marginalized and oppressed people (a) makes no sense and (b) perpetuates the harm done to them.

The same moral condemnation used against porn is directed at prostitution and other forms of sex workers, who often have it a lot harder than people like me who aren’t working dark alleys with anonymous strangers at night.

Porn performers have to deal with stigma and certain levels of fear, while street-involved sex workers face the brunt of physical violence. (The contrast is no accident, by the way. Porn is legal and regulated.

“Prostitution” is criminalized. Abusive photographers can be reported. Abusive pimps get away with it precisely because the cops are just as abusive.)

But it is the same whorephobia underlying both kinds of oppression. The prudish voices that condemn porn are usually the same voices (even the “feminist” ones) decrying the “moral depravity” of prostitution.

And that’s the idea behind the criminalization of prostitution: policies that put more sex workers on the streets, behind bars and in danger.

We should be focused on dismantling a society that forces us to sell ourselves, not one particular industry within that society — especially an industry that is currently (for better or worse) the livelihood for some of the most vulnerable people in our culture.

We should be trying to build a world where, instead of working for the profit of others, we work for pleasure and for the benefit of ourselves, our communities and our planet.

Focusing on porn, and ignoring the larger context of capitalism, only serves the interest of those in power and harms those with the least power.

Workers Defend Their Rights in Wisconsin & Ohio

Rachel Maddow Defends Western Warmongering in Libya

Rachel Maddow, defender of "friendly" western aggression

By David Walsh

On March 21, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow offered a defense of the Obama administration and its role in launching a military assault on Libya. With tortured logic, Maddow attempted to show that the means by which President Barack Obama made public this new act of Great Power aggression revealed the chasm that separates his administration from that of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

The arguments offered by the MSNBC news program host, a principal voice of the American liberal-left in the mainstream media, are absurd and unworthy, but it is unlikely anyone in and around her circle will object. This social layer is fully committed to the Obama administration and, moreover, to the defense of American imperial interests, with which it identifies, in the final analysis, its own material comfort and peace of mind. This helps explain the collapse of the official anti-war movement in the US since the 2008 election.

Maddow began her program Monday in a typically flippant manner. “In the United States of America, we are used to thinking of ourselves as a superpower, as a world leader, as a country capable of throwing our weight around when we feel the need to. … We go to war all the time—big wars, little wars, medium-sized wars, weird wars, normal wars, wars. America as a country fights a lot of wars.”

Maddow’s cynical tone hints at criticism and a vaguely anti-establishment, even anti-war stance, while actually committing her to no position or analysis whatsoever. Why does the US government go to war so frequently? What has been the character of those wars? What is her attitude toward those conflicts? About that, nothing …

After showing clips of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and the most recent Bush announcing military actions from the White House (against Grenada, Libya, Iraq, Serbia, and Iraq once more), Maddow told her viewers, “Now that the United States has embarked on its latest new military intervention in Libya, I would love to be able to show you the current president’s Oval Office address on the subject, but there isn’t one.”

Maddow noted that Obama made his public statement about the latest US military action while in Brazil. She continued, “President Obama announced his own military intervention, but he pointedly declined the opportunity to do it in a way that US presidents usually do.” The current administration’s decision, the news program host explained, “to forego the chest-thumping commander-in-chief theater that goes with military intervention of any kind, that in itself is a fascinating and rather blunt demonstration of just how much this presidency is not like that of George W. Bush.”

In other words, Maddow treats Obama’s anti-democratic and unconstitutional act of declaring war behind the backs of Congress and the American people as a positive good.

From there, Maddow presented clips of past presidents, while running for office, posturing as humble, ‘peace’ candidates. She went on, “A candidate named Barack Obama promised that. The difference with Mr. Obama as president is that he appears to be walking more of that walk as well as talking that talk.”

But Obama has launched a military assault against a virtually defenseless country (and, of course, escalated the war in Afghanistan to unprecedented levels, while maintaining 50,000 US troops in Iraq). How is that different from Bush, who also launched such attacks?

Because Obama has gone about it differently, making no Oval Office address, “repeatedly stressing the limited nature of US involvement, promising there will be no ground troops, no matter what” (Maddow), bringing in European allies and various Arab regimes, etc. Obama’s empty phrase that the bulk of US involvement in the Libyan operation would last “A Matter of Days, Not a Matter of Weeks” appeared on the screen throughout the first portion of her program.

Maddow’s defense of Obama’s new war in Libya, which will result in the deaths of thousands and risks unleashing far wider and bloodier conflagrations, sheds light on her and the American liberal-left more generally. There is nothing remotely “progressive” about these people.

American's Lied to About Israel

J-Street advocates genocide with a smile

By Philip Giraldi

J Street is seductive.  Americans have been bombarded with propaganda about Israel ever since the foundation of the country over sixty years ago.  More recently, the United States has been designated by the media and the chattering classes as the protector of the Jewish state with little regard for those actions undertaken by Tel Aviv that impact negatively on US interests.

This is because the Israel Lobby is the most powerful foreign lobby in the United States by far.  The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has become the ugly side of the Lobby, has rightly drawn criticism for its bullying tactics and its alignment with extreme right-wing parties in Israel.  Progressives and some conservatives in the United States who support Israel as a homeland for the world’s Jews have been eager to find a more respectable alternative lobby.  That alternative is J Street.

J Street, which recently completed its third annual conference in Washington, is a self-proclaimed kinder and gentler advocate of Israeli interests.  It favors peace on equitable terms with the Palestinians and also with Israel’s Arab neighbors.  It opposes expansion of the Israeli settlements on the West Bank because they are an obstacle to peace.  It calls itself "pro-Israel, pro-American, and pro-peace."  If one judges by the enemies it has attracted, including nearly all leading neoconservatives, J Street has to be considered a breath of fresh air and the best option for sustainable peace in the Middle East.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?  But somehow the parts don’t quite add up.  J Street really only differs from AIPAC in tone, not in substance.  It advocates continued and unlimited United States support for Israel, militarily, economically, and politically.  J Street wants Israel to have an overwhelming military advantage over its Arab neighbors and it wants that margin to be provided by Washington.  It wants Republicans and Democrats together to provide political cover for Israel when it attacks Lebanon or bombs the Gazans.  It does not object when Israel exercises a military option against its neighbors. In spite of the fact that the United States is in deep trouble economically while Israel is one of the richest countries in the world and is enjoying an economic boom, J Street was one of the first organizations to complain when Senator Rand Paul called for an end to all foreign aid.

J Street also believes that Israel is and should be a Jewish state with unlimited right of "return" for Jews from anywhere in the world and no such rights for Christians or Muslims who lived in the country before 1948.  A Jewish state, by definition, would have limited rights for the 20% and growing segment of the current Israeli population that is Christian or Muslim.  J Street quixotically supports a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, even though it knows that the half million Israeli Jews living in settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank cannot be moved and will make two states impossible.  It does not accept a one-state solution, the only one likely to work, that would make the followers of all religions equal citizens in a unified state embracing both Arabs and Jews.  J Street’s Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami has called a one-state solution a "nightmare."

J Street seems a lot better than AIPAC, but much of what it advocates sounds familiar.  Ben-Ami has criticized the highly acclaimed John Mearsheimer-Stephen Walt book on the Israel Lobby for its scholarship and refers to the authors as anti-Semites. J Street opposed Israel’s bloody incursion into Gaza, but only because it was disproportionate, and then rejected the UN’s Goldstone report that detailed the war crimes that were committed.  When Israeli commandoes killed nine Turkish citizens on the Mavi Marmara ship trying to break the blockade of Gaza, J Street mourned the loss of life but blamed the victims for deliberately "using the media coverage to further damage Israel’s standing in world opinion."  J Street supports military action against Iran as a "last resort" to incapacitate the country’s nuclear program and denies to Tehran the right to enrich uranium for any purpose.

Supporters of J Street claim that its positions will become more nuanced as its influence grows, but one of the panels at the just-concluded convention debated "Is the Settlement Enterprise Destroying Israel’s Democracy?"  One might well ask why there was a question mark at the end since it is well documented that the settlements bring with them every imaginable evil. Fifteen months ago, J Street sponsored a speaking tour by an Israeli general Danny Rothschild who was advocating a two-state solution with the Palestinians.  He made the rounds in Washington arguing that demographics and common sense dictate that Israel must come to some kind of settlement.  But then, he added, there is "Islamofascism" and also Iran, genuine threats that must be dealt with by force.  So what was the real message, peace with the Palestinians (on Israel’s terms, it might be added), or expand the war against extremism while bombing Iran?

But the real problem with J Street is that it exists at all.  Why should there be a new and powerful lobby in Washington composed of American citizens arguing for a special relationship with any country?  Why should the United States be providing unlimited support to a nation that claims to be a democracy but which limits rights based on religion?  If J Street truly wants to fix Israel it should be working in Israel, not in the United States, because the settlers and hardline right-wing parties are Israeli problems. J Street knows perfectly well that Congress, the White House, and the media will not challenge the Israel status quo so, at best, it is a bit of scam designed to support Israel while making progressives feel more comfortable in lining up behind the effort.

The United States already has too many special interest lobbies promoting policies that do absolutely nothing good for the American people.  If Israel has become a rogue state, which it has, the problem must be resolved by the Israelis themselves and the diaspora Jews who believe that they have a stake in the outcome.  If the latter really want to have an impact, they should turn in their US passports and move to Israel.  From the American perspective, which should be the only one that matters to US citizens, the best policy for the United States is to disengage from the Arab-Israel conflict, not to become even more deeply involved from another, slightly more palatable perspective offered by J Street.